Thf,  T)aWN     of  THi 


Modern  Mission 


W^ Fleming  Stevenson,  D  D 


•V-i." 


v:-^.^^^'.''' 
:-^»' 


,1  xu  moHmt  ^ 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


« 


5/1^^. 


BV  2400  .S72   ''   '  ' 
Stevenson,  w.  Fie„,ing  1832 


THE 

DAWN  OF  THE  MODERN  MISSION. 


The   Rev.    VJ,   FLEMING   STEVENSON,    D.D., 
Born  20th  September,  1832. 
Died    16th  September,  1886. 


THE 

DAWN  OF  THE  MODERN 

MISSION. 


RKV.    \VM.    FLEMING ''S^'EVKiNSON,    D.l), 

AinilOK    OK    "  I'RAVINC    AND    WORKING, "    KIT.    KiC. 


WITH   FREFATOKY  NOTE 

IIY    THK 

R  E  V.    A.    H.    CHAR  I'  E  R  I  S,    I ).  D., 

Professor  of  Biblical  Criticism  in  the   Ihii^'osity  of  Eii/nlii)-g/i. 


NEW    YORK: 
A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    &    SON. 

EDIMU'RCll  :    MACNIVEN    cK:    WALLACE 
1888. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


The  following  Lectures  were  delivered  in  con- 
nection with  the  Duff  Missionary  Lectureship* 
in  Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  and  Aberdeen,  during 
the  years   1884- 1886. 

The  Author,  writing  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Duff  Trustees  in  1884,  to  ask  an  extension  of 
time  for  their  preparation,  said  : — 

"  What  I  chose  was  to  show  Christianity  in  contact 
with  the  various  heathen  religions  among  which  it  has 
been  placed  by  our  modern  Missions.  This  involves, 
of  course,  the  endeavour  to  exhibit  the  characteristics 
of  at  least  the  more  distinct  heathen  religions  of  our 

*  Founded  by  Mr.  W.  Pirie  Duff  as  residuary  legatee 
of  his  father,  the  Rev.  Alexander  Duff,  D.D.,  the  subject 
being  Foreign  Missions,  or  a  cognate  subject.  Professor 
Thomas  Smith  was  the  first  lecturer,  Dr.  Stevenson  the 
second. 


VI  PREFATORY    NOTE. 

time ;  what  they  had  come  to  be  when  the  Gospel 
touched  them,  and  the  character  of  life  and  conduct 
which  had  grown  up  with  them  in  the  countries  where 
they  prevailed  or  prevail. 

"  An  interest  gathers  around  the  first  contact  that  is 
felt  in  no  other;  and  I  proposed,  therefore,  though 
the  treatment  would  be  slight,  to  deal  at  this  point 
with  the  more  striking  origins  of  our  Missions  of 
to-day  (this  word,  however,  covering  two  centuries) 
and  with  the  story  of  their  founders. 

"  Having  prepared  the  way,  I  proposed  to  show  what 
effect  the  contact  thus  established  had  produced 
already  upon  the  thought  and  conduct  and  elevation 
of  the  peoples — of  each  people — and  to  show  what 
reason  there  was  for  believing  in  far  larger  changes  to 
come. 

"And  I  proposed  also  to  gather  together  from  this 
survey,  such  hints,  lessons,  and  encouragements  as 
would  serve  for  guidance  and  stimulus  in  the  mission- 
work  of  the  future. 

"  Many  minor  questions,  of  course,  must  be  taken 
up  in  the  way — e.^.,  the  difference  between  the  contact 
of  Christianity  to-day,  and  in  the  first  century ;  the 
different  results  of  Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic 
Missions ;  the  irregular  native  movements  produced 
by  this  contact,  for  example  in  India,  China,  and  New 


PREFATORY   NOTE.  Vll 

Zealand,  even  though  the  movement  may  not  tend  to 
Christianity;  and  many  more. 

"...  The  scheme  was  definite,  and  I  had  hoped 
not  too  ambitious.  But  you  will  easily  see  that  it 
involves  an  extent  and  variety  of  reading  that  tended 
evermore  to  increase ;  and  when  coupled  with  press- 
ing work  that  dared  not  be  put  aside,  and  with  which 
my  hands  were  already  pretty  full,  it  became  more 
and  more  difficult  to  bring  it  within  the  compass  of  my 
allotted  time." 

When  Dr.  Stevenson  delivered  the  Lectures, 
he  was  greatly  dissatisfied  with  the  form  in 
which  his  thoughts  were  presented,  and  he  hoped 
that  before  publication  the  statement  would  be 
made  more  worthy  of  the  subject  and  of  his 
purpose.  When  his  last  illness  suddenly  struck 
him  down,  there  were  few  things  more  upon  his 
mind  than  the  revisal  and  perfecting  of  his  new 
contribution  to  the  literature  of  Missions.  But 
after  his  death  it  was  found  that  the  manuscripts 
were  little  changed  from  the  state  in  which  he 
had  used  them  in  delivery.  Only  one  who  knew 
his  mind  as  well  as  his  mode  of  writing  could 


Vlii  PREFATORY   NOTE. 

have  deciphered  the  scraps  bearing  pathetic 
witness  of  having  been  written  in  such  fragments 
of  time  as  he  could  command  amid  his  work  for 
his  congregation  and  his  Church.  But  they  have 
been  most  accurately  transcribed  and  printed 
just  as  they  fell  from  his  hand.  They  are  not  as 
he  would  have  liked  them  to  be,  for  his  ideal  of 
orm  and  rhythm  was  very  high  ;  not  even  as  he 
would  assuredly  have  made  them  before  they 
came  to  the  public  eye.  He  had  accumulated 
stores  of  information,  of  which  he  had  not  time 
to  make  full  use  ;  and  the  Lectures  are  far  from 
being  so  substantial  and  extensive  as  his  plan 
contemplated.  They  contain,  nevertheless,  a 
vivid  picture  of  a  time  and  a  work  which  had 
been  much  in  his  mind  ;  and  the  friends  who 
read  them  in  manuscript  were  unanimous  in 
recommending  that  they  should  be  published. 
They  convey  lessons,  and  they  are  eminently 
such  as  will  stimulate  readers  to  further  study 
of  the  problems  of  Missions.  The  author  of 
"  Praying  and  Working "  always  connected  his 
teachings  with  some  personal  example,  and   it 


PREFATORY    NOTE.  IX 

will  be  seen  how  Ziegenbalg,  and  Zinzendorf, 
and  John  Eliot  and  others  stand  out  from  their 
surroundings  as  representative  of  the  highest 
purposes  of  their  times. 

The  burden  of  preparing  the  book  for  the  Press 
has  fallen  upon  her  of  whom  the  lecturer  had 
said  in  the  Preface  to  his  book  of  Hymns  for 
the  Church  and  Home,  that  without  her 
encouragement  and  help  it  would  never  have 
been  accomplished  ;  and  it  is  at  her  urgent 
request  that  I  write  these  lines  to  explain  the 
circumstances  of  this  posthumous  publication. 

In  another  part  of  his  letter  to  the  Duff 
Trustees,  he  spoke  of  his  "  very  busy  and  dis- 
tracted life,"  and  no  one  who  ever  saw  how  he 
worked  could  wonder  that  his  strength  failed 
him  before  the  day  was  done  ;  but  there  was 
notwithstanding  such  a  glad  peacefulness  in  his 
heart,  that  it  shone  through  all  his  life,  and 
made  that  life  a  Hymn  of  the  Church  and 
Home.  He  had  personally  visited  all  the  chief 
Mission-fields  of  the  world ;  he  had  read  almost 
every  important  book   describing   Missions ;  as 


X  PREFATORY    NOTE. 

Convener  of  the  Foreign  Missions  Committee 
of  the  Irish  Presbyterian  Church,  he  was  toihng 
day  and  night  for  Missions  ;  and  I  am  fully  per- 
suaded that  these  Lectures,  though  they  are  not 
quite  what  he  would  have  made  them,  will 
advance  the  cause  of  Missions  to  which  he  gave 
his  life. 

A.  H.  CHARTERIS. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Dawn  of  the  Modern  Mission,       .        i 
II.  The  True  Conception  of  the  Mission,  .      51 

III.  Struggling  but  Prevailing,       ...      97 

IV.  The  Conquest  of  India,     .        .        .        .149 


I. 


THE    DAWN    OF   THE    MODERN 
xAlISSION. 


THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

"  The  night  is  far  spent,  the  day  is  at  hand." — RoM. 
xiii.  12. 

Let  us  place  ourselves  on  the  threshold  of  the  The  sixteent 
sixteenth  century.  We  are  fifteen  hundred  ^^^'^^^>'- 
years  away  from  the  birth  of  Christ,  and 
we  can  trace  the  power  of  the  new  religion 
that  sprang  from  His  cradle,  we  can  measure 
its  advance.  Broadly  speaking,  Europe  is  Europe. 
Christian,  as  much  of  it  Christian  as  there  is  to- 
day;  and,  broadly  speaking,  beyond  Europe 
there  is  no  Christianity.  A  great  work  has  now 
been  done.  Not  always  swiftly,  but  always 
firmly  and  patiently,  the  new  religion  has  made 
its  way.  Rome  and  its  empire  have  become  a 
Christian  heritage.  The  Greek  language  and  the 
Latin  exist,  but  only  to  be  the  vehicle  for  the 
thought  of  Christian  peoples.  The  wastes  of 
wilderness  and  savage  men  that  lay  between  the 
Elbe   and    the  Danube  have  become  Christian 


4       THE   DAWN    OF   THE    MODERN    MISSION. 

kingdoms.  Christianity  has  spread  up  into  the 
north  ;  to  the  very  seat  of  the  Vikings  who  once 
swept  the  Christian  shores  of  the  Mediterranean 
with  their  plundering  fleets.  It  has  planted 
itself  along  the  borders  of  the  Baltic,  and  fringed 
the  region  of  perpetual  snow.  The  powers  that 
rule  our  modern  world  have  been  growing  up 
through  periods  of  infinite  confusion  and  unrest ; 
and  they  are  all  Christian  powers  :  France,  Italy, 
and  Spain ;  Germany  and  Russia ;  Denmark 
and  Britain. 

But  with  Europe  the  line  of  Christian  conquest 
comes  to  an  end.  The  religion  of  Mohammed 
has  spread  into  Asia  from  the  Red  Sea  and  the 
Black,  till  it  touches  the  mountains  of  Hindustan 
— and  beyond  that,  over  all  Asia  heathenism  is 
supreme.  Mohammedanism  lies  in  a  narrow 
belt  along  the  north  of  Africa,  from  the  Straits 
of  Gibraltar  to  the  Nile  ;  and  below  that  belt, 
to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  all  but  Abyssinia  is 
heathen. 

The  rumours  of  a  new  world  are  bruited  about, 
and  the  voyages  of  Columbus  are  raising  the 
eager  talk  of  men  in  every  part  of  Europe  ;  but, 
from  Behring's  Straits  to  Patagonia,  America  is 
heathen.      The   mvriad   islands   of  the    sea   are 


THE   DAWN    OF   THE    MODERN    MISSION.        5 

undiscovered  and  unknown  ;  but  a  population, 
probably  larger  than  what  they  show  to-day, 
practises  among  them  the  same  heathen  rites 
that  froze  the  blood  of  La  Perouse  and  Captain 
Cook. 

A  few  faint  streaks  of  light  are  seen,  or  Distant 
scarcely  seen  across  the  darkness, — such  as  the  c^^i^^^^  • 
spurious  Christianity  of  Abyssinia,  flecked  by  the 
mission  converts  of  the  Portuguese,  the  Copts  of 
Egypt,  the  dying  churches  of  Asia  Minor,  the 
vanishing  settlements  of  the  Nestorians,  the 
handful  of  Thomas  Christians  in  Malabar. 

But  there  was  worse  than  lack  of  conquest, 
there  was  lack  of  power  to  hold  what  had  been 
won. 

Christianity  had  overrun  Europe  ;  but  it  had  Christianity 
almost  disappeared  from  Asia,  where  it  was  "retreating. 
born.  The  very  Palestine  of  Christ  was  in 
possession  of  the  infidel.  Antioch  that  had 
stretched  its  patriarchate  over  the  East,  and 
fostered  churches  as  far  as  the  wall  of  China, 
was  trodden  by  the  feet  of  Moslem  conquerors. 
The  schools  of  Alexandria  were  silenced  by  the 
sword  of  Mohammed.  Hippo  and  Carthage  and 
Tagaste,  and  every  sacred  spot  of  the  African 
Church,  the  memories  of  Augustine,  of  Alypius, 


6       THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN   MISSION. 

of  Cyprian  and  Tertullian,  of  Monica  and 
Perpetua,  the  regions  that  had  been  hallowed 
by  innumerable  martyrs,  were  all  overrun  by 
teachers  of  Mohammedanism  ;  Christianity  was 
assailed  even  in  Europe  itself.  The  cry  of  the 
muezzin  was  heard  from  a  hundred  minarets  in 
the  city  where  Chrysostom  preached  to  Christian 
emperors. 

The  fierce,  strong  faith  of  the  Arab  not  only 
held  Constantinople,  but  also  reached  to  Rome  ; 
and  nothing  but  the  narrow  waters  of  the 
Adriatic  lay  between  the  centre  of  Latin 
Christendom  and  the  eager  outposts  of  the 
Turk. 

Hundreds  of  years  before  this,  there  had  been 
a  chain  of  Mission  Churches  from  the  Caspian 
almost  to  the  Yellow  Sea  ;  the  little  Christian 
kingdom  of  the  Tartars,  ruled  by  its  Prester 
Johns,  may  not  have  stood  alone  ;  but  now,  the 
Nestorian  occupation  of  Western  China  had 
shrunk  down  to  a  tablet  with  an  inscription,  and 
Tamerlane  had  swept  every  trace  of  Christianity 
off  the  face  of  Central  Asia. 

Ground  had  been  lost,  century  by  century  ; 
and  for  half  a  millennium  no  ground  had  been 
won.      No  doubt,  the  loss  was   mostly  on    the 


THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION.       J 

surface,  in  the  extent  of  the  area  covered,  rather 
than  in  the  lessening  of  any  real  power.  Christ- 
ianity might  shift  for  a  season  from  the  East  to 
the  West ;  but  it  was  still  the  ruling  races 
that  were  Christian.  If  it  disappeared  from  the 
older  peoples,  the  patient,  immobile,  contem- 
plative and  also  stagnant  elder  world,  if  it  rose 
up  supreme  among  the  younger  as  they  spread 
their  fresh  life  over  Europe,  it  was  only  one 
more  proof  that  it  could  control  what  was  most 
masterful  and  progressive  in  human  thought  and 
action  ;  that  it  belonged  neither  to  the  West  nor 
to  the  East,  but  was  capable  of  being  the  religion 
of  mankind.  Christendom  had  not  lost  strength 
nor  influence  by  this  shifting  of  its  base,  but  the 
lands  that  have  dispensed  with  it  have  been 
losers  ever  since. 

Yet  loss  there  was  ;  and  the  hearts  of  the  few  Christendom 
who  raised  themselves  above  their  age  were  disheartened, 
smitten  with  dismay. 

The  last  forward  movement  of  the  Church 
seemed  to  have  spent  itself  about  the  close  of 
the  tenth  century,  and  with  its  expiring  years 
flashes  of  Christian  light  had  shot  up  into  the 
northern  sky;  into  Shetland,  Iceland,  Greenland, 
into  efforts  of  the  Tsars  to  abolish  Pagan  prac- 


8       THE   DAWN    OF    THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

tices  in  Russia,  and  decrees  of  King  Olaf  sup- 
pressing in  somewhat  Viking  fashion  the  Odin 
worship  of  Sweden  and  Norway.  That  seemed 
the  farthest  point  to  which  the  Church  had  been 
carried  by  the  energy  of  its  mediaeval  Missions  ; 
and  there  it  paused,  and  the  shadows  of  the 
Pagan  night  began  to  creep  into  the  Christian 
sky.  The  exploits  of  the  great  missionary 
monks  had  come  to  be  as  much  matters  of 
remote  and  unnoticed  legend  as  they  are  to-day. 

The  magnificent  enthusiasm  of  Raymond 
Lully  was  a  tradition.  Even  the  voices  of  the 
Crusaders  had  long  died  away,  and  they  were 
no  more  than  echoes  of  the  far  nobler  spiritual 
voices  that  had  preceded  them.  A  great  weari- 
ness and  a  great  despair  had  settled  down  upon 
the  world,  and  a  man  so  strong  and  healthy  as 
Luther,  a  man  of  the  new  epoch,  could  say  as 
his  final  word,  "Asia  and  Africa  have  no  Gospel  ; 
another  hundred  years  and  all  will  be  over;  God's 
Word  will  disappear  for  want  of  any  to  preach 
it." 

On  the  whole,  this  outlook  on  Christendom 
from  the  threshold  of  the  sixteenth  century  is 
not  so  reassuring  as  it  seems  at  first.  It  reveals 
a    condition     of    pause,     of     Christian     energy 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE   MODERN    MISSION.       9 

suspended  or  exhausted.  It  points  to  a  long 
line  of  conquest  checked  ;  to  lands  that  had 
been  seized  and  held  for  Christ,  yet  now,  little 
by  little,  overspread  with  awful  shadows  of  the 
night  of  error ;  to  the  danger  (present  in  every 
age)  that  the  unslumbering  forces  of  evil  will  be 
sure  to  press  the  Church  back,  if  ever  the  Church 
should  stand  still.  Already,  however,  there  was  An  inventive 
visible  that  restless  ground-swell  which  precedes  ^™^- 
the  storm  of  thought ;  the  age  of  invention — 
invention  which  the  times  held  in  clumsy  fingers 
— was  anticipating  the  age  of  revolution.  Dis- 
coveries more  bewildering  than  dreams  were 
kindling  the  young  heart  of  Europe,  and  sign 
upon  sign  was  pointing  to  a  new  epoch  that 
would  be  the  turning-point  of  Christian  history. 
It  was  from  this  new  age  of  unexampled 
influence  that  the  Church  caught  again  the 
passion  for  conquest,  caught  it  indeed  slowly,  as 
it  seized  upon  only  one  here  and  another  there, 
but  caught  it  surely,  increasing  its  hold  and 
striking  its  roots  down  into  the  soul  of  Christian 
thought,  until  the  aggressive  and  missionary  pur- 
pose of  the  Kingdom  of  God  has  assumed  a  pro- 
minence unknown  since  the  days  of  the  Apostles, 
and   unexampled   even   then.      The  forces  that 


10      THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

had  already  triumphed  in  a  Christian  Europe 
were  now  to  be  put  forth  with  the  ambition  of 
issuing  in  a  Christian  world.  Christianity  was 
once  more  to  touch  the  great  heathen  religions, 
and  we  are  to  watch  the  effect  of  the  contact. 
We  shall  therefore  glance  briefly  at  that  vast  and 
Chrlstless  multitude  of  men,  into  the  midst  of 
which  the  Church  was  to  adventure,  if  she  would 
plant  in  the  soil  that  had  been  covered  and 
impoverished  by  their  own  beliefs,  the  mustard 
seed  of  the  Gospel. 
Contemporary      The  religions  that  face  us  include  some  of  the 

religious  oldest,  the  most  powerful,  and  the  most  complex 

systems. 

in  the  world.  They  have  developed  from  prim- 
itive forms  into  intricate  systems.  Their  hold 
upon  the  people  has  been  not  only  strengthened 
by  centuries  of  use,  but  buttressed  by  philo- 
sophical speculation,  and  by  an  infinite  variety 
of  modes  of  worship.  The  people  that  they 
control  are  vastly  more  numerous  and  more 
homogeneous  than  those  that  have  been  found 
under  any  religion  that  has  yet  been  displaced 
by  Christianity.  The  most  powerful  of  them 
were  strong  before  Rome  was  built,  or  Troy  was 
taken.  They  have  been  contemporary  with  all 
the    line   of    Judaism,    and    all    the   growth   of 


THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION.       II 

Christianity.  Hinduism  spread  over  all  the  vast  Hindui 
region  that  stretches  from  the  shadow  of  the 
Himalaya  to  the  ceaseless  surf  that  beats  on  the 
rocks  at  Comorin.  It  had  passed  through  earlier 
stages  in  the  slow  motion  of  its  long  millenniums. 
The Vedic  Hymns  represent  its  earlier  and  simpler  Vedas. 
forms,  a  perception  of  nature  that  is  only  else- 
where found  in  Christian  literatures,  but  running 
into  adoration  of  the  mountains,  rivers,  springs, 
trees,  and  plants  that  had  impressed  the  simple 
Aryan  shepherd  :  an  adoration  that  includes 
"  the  horse  by  which  he  is  borne  into  battle,  the 
cow  which  supplies  him  with  nourishment,  the 
dog  which  keeps  watch  over  his  dwelling."  He 
recognises  God  everywhere,  in  the  plough,  the 
furrow,  and  the  Avar-chariot.  But,  above  them 
he  recognises  vaguely  a  divinity  which  he  calls 
by  many  names  :  the  principle  of  all  life,  the 
quickener  of  nature,  whose  breath  brings  fruitful- 
ness,  whose  essence  is  the  fervour  of  prayer ;  the 
dispenser  of  all  good  gifts,  whose  hand  traces  the 
course  of  every  river,  the  flash  of  every  thunder- 
bolt ;  who  holds  the  earth  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,  and  sustains  the  vault  of  heaven  without 
prop  of  visible  pillar.  The  sun  is  his  eye,  the 
sky    is    his    garment,  the   storm    is    his   breath. 


12      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

From  his  palace,  with  its  thousand  gates,  he 
discovers  the  flight  of  every  bird,  the  course  of 
every  ship  upon  the  trackless  sea.  Seated  on  his 
throne  of  gold,  he  watches  over  the  execution  of 
his  own  decrees,  directs  the  onward  movement 
of  the  world,  and,  with  a  sleepless  eye,  regards 
all  the  doings  of  men.  When  he  rises  as  the  sun, 
he  raises  his  long  arms  of  gold  ;  when  he  sets, 
he  withdraws  them  to  his  bosom. 

Monotheism  and  Pantheism  struggle  together 
for  expression  in  these  ancient  hymns,  and 
beneath  the  struggle  there  arose  the  persistent 
growth  of  a  vast  idolatry.  A  later  stage  was 
reached  when  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  writing 
became  less  important  than  the  keeping  of  it  ; 
when  the  directness  of  communication  with  the 
invisible  was  lost  ;  when  ritual  took  the  place  of 
knowledge  ;  and  the  priest,  or  Brahman,  the 
place  of  the  people.  Sacrifices  and  ceremonies 
were  multiplied  without  restraint.  There  were 
over  a  thousand  sacrifices,  and  there  were  rites 
which  should  occupy  a  thousand  years. 

Still  later  stages  were  also  reached,  though 
slowly  :  the  gods  and  the  cult  with  which  we  are 
familiar  to-day,  and  which  have  retained  the 
place  they  hold  since  before  the  Christian  era, 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE    MODERN    MISSION.       1 3 

making  up  that  complex  Hinduism  which,  at  the 
period  of  our  survey  as  well  as  now,  had  largely 
lost  the  power  to  understand  itself,  and  had 
become  a  wearisome  Polytheism  held  together 
by  priestcraft  and  caste. 

And  thus  there  had  come  to  be  in  India  a  Subtle 
religion  more  subtle,  more  powerful,  more  deftly  ^  ^^' 
woven  into  the  daily  life,  more  patient,  persistent, 
and  cohesive  than  any  which  Christianity  had 
yet  encountered.  While  a  religious  revolution 
had  swept  across  the  West,  removing  every  land- 
mark of  the  old  Greek  and  Roman  faiths, 
Brahmanism  had  been  calmly  adding  to  its 
strength,  and  hardening  into  the  shape  which  it 
presents  to-day.  It  had  completed  its  later 
literature,  reconciled  its  conflicting  parties  by  the 
Trimurtti,  added  the  gods  that  had  been  wanting 
to  its  Pantheon,  and  forged  the  last  links  in  a 
system  of  caste  and  ritual  that  has  ever  been 
without  a  rival.  It  possessed  a  theology  that 
touched  on  the  profoundest  questions  of  being, 
a  metaphysic  that  attracted  all  the  speculative 
sympathy  of  the  Oriental  mind,  and  a  profuseness 
of  religious  worship  that  seemed  able  to  exhaust 
every  craving  of  spiritual  fear,  and  every  longing 
of  spiritual  desire.    Often  full,  on  the  higher  side 


14      THE   DAWN    OF   THE    MODERN    MISSION. 

of  a  dignity  and  splendour  unknown  to  other 
non-Christian  reHgions,  on  the  lower  it  sank  into 
a  gross  licentiousness  that  could  only  debauch 
the  worshipper. 

Beginning  as  a  strangely  pure  and  abstract 
spiritualism,  it  passed  into  an  extravagant  Pan- 
theism. It  formulated  the  doctrines  of  Maya,  or 
Illusion,  by  which  the  world  resolved  itself  into 
so  many  appearances  of  God,  and  then,  having 
proclaimed  that  there  is  nothing  but  God,  it 
rushed  helplessly  downward  into  Polytheism. 
These  three  stages  of  thought  exist  in  India  side 
by  side,  and,  as  now  constructed,  Brahmanism 
admits  the  extremes  of  inconsistency,  a  religious 
system  in  which  men,  wide  as  the  poles  asunder, 
find  a  common  footing.  With  a  belief  so 
abstract  that  it  almost  escapes  the  grasp  of  the 
most  speculative  intellect,  is  joined  the  notion 
that  sin  can  be  atoned  by  bathing  in  the  Ganges 
or  repeating  a  text  of  the  Veda.  To  an  ideal 
Pantheism  like  that  of  Hegel,  it  unites  the 
opinion  that  Brahma  and  Siva  can  be  driven 
from  the  throne  of  the  universe  by  whoever 
will  sacrifice  so  many  wild  horses.  To  be  ab- 
stracted from  matter,  to  renounce  the  gratifica- 
tion of  the  senses,  and  to  macerate  the  body,  is 


THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION.       1 5 

considered  the  true  road  to  felicity  ;  yet  nowhere 
in  the  world  are  luxury,  licentiousness,  and  the 
gratification  of  the  appetites  carried  so  far. 
It  is  a  principle  of  Hindu  religion  not  to  kill  a 
worm,  nor  even  to  tread  on  a  blade  of  grass  for 
fear  of  injuring  life;  but  the  torments,  cruelties, 
and  bloodshed  inflicted  by  Indian  tyrants  would 
shock  a  Nero  or  a  Borgia.  Half  the  best 
informed  writers  on  India  will  tell  you  that  the 
Brahmanical  religion  is  pure  Monotheism  ;  the 
other  half  as  confidently  that  the  Hindu  worships 
a  million  gods. 

Such  as  it  was,  it  swayed,  at  the  time  we  have 
chosen  for  our  survey,  a  population  larger  than 
that  of  Europe,  and  speaking  more  languages. 
Its  priests  might  smile  at  the  suggestion  of  being 
conquered,  for  Brahmanism  had  as  yet  come 
out  victorious  from  every  religious  conflict.  It 
had  conquered  Buddhism,  its  own  child,  and  Buddhism, 
cast  it  out,  and  although,  at  the  time,  Moham- 
medan conquerors  sat  upon  its  thrones  and 
scourged  its  idolatries,  although  Akbar's  court 
was  soon  to  astonish  the  world  by  its  splendour, 
the  Brahman  would  prevail  over  the  Moham- 
medan, and  all  the  fabric  of  Mohammedan 
power  melt  away  like  a  dream. 


1 6      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

Confucianism.  In  China  there  was  Confucianism,  most  sterile 
and  least  impressive  of  religious  systems,  an 
ethic  rather  than  a  theology,  with  treatises  on 
government  instead  of  religious  formulas,  a 
consistent  agnosticism  after  its  kind,  yet  often 
beautiful  upon  the  side  of  precept  and  the 
practical  virtues.  Brahmanism  was  imposed  on 
the  Hindus  by  its  centuries  of  philosophical 
schools ;  Confucianism  was  imposed  by  the 
personal  influence  of  the  master  himself,  who 
has  become,  "  during  twenty-three  centuries  the 
daily  teacher  and  guide  of  a  third  of  the  human 
race."     But,  besides  Confucianism,  there  was  the 

Taoism.  Taoism  of  Laotze,  who  was  Confucius'  philoso- 

phical, and  to  him  unintelligible  contemporary. 
Taoism  has  been  defined  as  "  rationalism  in 
philosophy  and  stoicism  in  morals."  It  is  only 
on  one  side  that  it  has  met,  if  even  there,  a 
popular  acceptance — the  side  of  its  magic  and 
worship  of  departed  spirits.  Those  who  found 
no  answer  to  the  cravings  of  their  spirit  in 
Confucius  or  Laotze  turned  to  Buddhism,  which 
had  already  become  the  popular  religion,  and 
dwelt  with  the  others  in  perfect  harmony,  the 
one  controlling  the  relations  to  the  State,  the 
other  the  relations  to  the  future.     Here,  then, 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE   MODERN    MISSION.       1/ 

was  another  huge  field  of  conquest,  a  religion  no 
less  ancient  than  Hinduism,  a  people  more 
homogeneous  (for  the  same  alphabet  runs  from 
end  to  end  of  the  empire),  and  a  population 
even  more  unwieldy  than  India.  And  Buddhism 
was  larger  than  China.  It  had  spread  over  the 
entire  of  Eastern  Asia,  and  then  into  Japan, 
where  it  assumed  much  the  same  relation  to 
Shintoism  that  in,  China  it  had  borne  to 
Confucianism. 

The  religion  of  the  Zendavesta,  with  its  lofty  Parsism. 
dualism,  has  nobler  elements  than  any  I  have 
mentioned  yet ;  but,  as  it  reckoned  only  a  fev/ 
thousand    adherents,   we    may   meanwhile    pass 
it  by. 

Those  religions  that  remain  are  all  of  one  Lower  types, 
type,  and  it  is  the  lowest.  The  Eskimo  were 
roaming  over  the  snows  of  Greenland  and 
Labrador  with  shadowy  belief  in  spirits  and 
some  after-world,  in  charms  and  oracles  and 
wizards.  The  Red  Indians  held  the  great 
hunting  fields  and  mysterious  forests  that 
covered  Canada  and  the  United  States,  the  best 
of  them  with  a  rude  nobility,  grave,  sagacious, 
and  indifferent  to  pain,  rich  in  curious  myths  of 
an  older  world,  acknowledging  one  great  Spirit 


1 8      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

and  Creator,  but  worshipping  innumerable  spirits 
that  they  disHked  and  dreaded  ;  the  worst  of 
them  as  near  to  the  brute  as  it  is  possible  for 
man  to  come.  The  Spaniards  were  rapidly 
destroying  the  people  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  and 
with  them,  their  curious  civilisation,  their  human 
sacrifices,  and  their  abominable  lust. 

Africa  and  Polynesia  swarmed  with  fetish 
worshippers,  and  were  red  with  the  blood 
exacted  by  their  monstrous  gods.  But,  whatever 
were  the  varying  forms  of  faith,  the  influence  of 
idolatry  was  everywhere  the  same.  It  was  long 
since  the  purer  elements  in  those  religions  had 
exerted  any  supremacy,  and  the  only  power 
that  moulded  life  was  the  cruel  and  corrupt 
belief  of  every  day. 
Mohamme-  We   have   not   yet   taken    count    of    another 

danism  a  com-  religion,  and,  up  till  now,  the  most  obstinate  of 
all  against  attack.  The  religion  of  Mohammed 
was  not  a  religion  of  idolatry,  nor  was  it  a 
religion  of  the  heathen.  It  was  in  some  sense 
a  protest — a  spurious  protest — against  the  idol- 
atry that  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  was 
spreading  in  the  Christian  Church.  It  availed 
itself  of  Bible  truth,  and  incorporated,  mixed 
with  various  legends,  many  Bible  stories  in  its 


TIIK    DAWN    OK   THE    MODERN    MISSION.       I9 

sacred  books.  Mohammed  was  willing  to  have 
prayed  five  times  a-day  toward  Jerusalem,  if  the 
Jews  had  received  him  as  a  prophet.  His 
system  was  a  bold  Monotheism,  which  taught 
originally  "faith  in  one  God,  submission  to  His 
will,  trust  in  His  providence,  and  good-will 
towards  His  creatures."  It  accepted  Adam, 
Noah,  Moses,  and  Jesus,  among  its  prophets,  as 
well  as  Mohammed.  It  acknowledged  the 
Pentateuch,  the  Psalms,  and  the  Gospels  to  be 
sacred  books,  as  well  as  the  Koran.  But 
Mohammedanism,  which  is  the  deification  of  will 
apart  from  righteousness,  "the  Pantheism  of 
force,"  became  as  sterile,  as  cruel,  and  as  hideous 
in  its  superstitions  as  any  religion  of  the 
heathen.  Its  Arabs  were  still  founding  empires 
when  our  outlook  begins.  It  was  spreading 
over  Asia,  it  was  creeping  westward  and  south- 
ward into  Africa ;  it  was  throned  on  the 
Bosphorus  ;  and,  if  the  Cross  was  lifted  high  on 
one  side  of  the  Adriatic,  the  crescent  gleamed 
upon  the  other.  And  wherever  that  crescent 
shone,  it  shone  as  a  spiritual  death,  of  which  in 
our  day  it  has  become  the  sign. 

It  is  into  that  huge  world,  fringing  Europe  all 
around,  that  we  now  propose  to  enter,  to  follow 


20      THE   DAWN    OF    THE  MODERN    MISSION, 


the  messengers  of  the  Church  as  they  cross  the 
territory  of  those  gigantic  superstitions,  to  look 
on  and  mark  as,  one  by  one,  each  reh'gion  is 
met  by  the  Word  of  the  living  God.  The  over- 
throw of  those  religions  is  to  be  the  new 
ambition  of  the  Christian  peoples,  slow  to  dawn, 
but  at  last,  as  we  see  to-day,  sure  to  come. 

We  know  what  had  come  of  it  centuries 
before.  Christianity  had  placed  itself  alongside, 
not  only  of  the  great  religions  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  but  of  that  group  of  religious  systems 
that  was  found  among  the  northern  races.  It 
had  overshadowed  them  ;  sometimes  it  had 
used  them  ;  finally,  it  had  replaced  them.  Per- 
haps the  conquest  was  not  as  complete  as  it 
looked  upon  the  surface.  Greek  and  Latin  were 
the  classic  tongues  of  Christendom,  and  when 
these  tongues  were  at  their  best,  every  Greek 
and  Roman  who  was  not  a  sceptic,  believed  in 
the  gods  that  had  their  seat  upon  Olympus.  It 
was  not  strange,  therefore,  that  when  there  were 
revivals  of  learning,  they  sometimes  drifted  into 
the  revival,  not  only  of  classical  studies,  but  of 
pagan  modes  of  thought.  There  was  also  a 
sediment  of  superstitious  belief  in  the  powers  of 
the    northern    mythology,    that    had    remained 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE    MODERN    MISSION.      21 

after  Christianity  became  the  rehgion  of  northern 
countries  ;  and  when  the  sediment  was  stirred,  it 
made  the  waters  of  the  Christian  faith  turbid 
enough.  There  was  a  lack  of  thoroughness  in 
most  of  the  older  work,  noble  and  often  magni- 
ficent as  it  was,  an  overlooking  of  the  individual 
in  the  bigness  of  the  race,  a  want  of  pure,  com- 
mon, definite  teaching,  for  which  there  is  no 
excuse  in  these  days,  when  the  school  goes  hand 
in  hand  with  the  mission.  We  must  admit  that, 
even  yet,  the  conquest  within  Christendom  is 
not  complete,  that  there  are  districts  all  over 
Europe  where,  if  we  probe  deep  enough,  we 
shall  find  heathen  notions.  In  the  history  of  a 
people,  the  time  required  for  the  growth  or  the 
decaying  of  its  religious  beliefs  is  immense. 

All  that  I  shall  repeat  is  this — that,  at  the  The  Reforma- 
threshold  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  main  ^^°"' 
part  of  that  work  had  been  done  for  what  is  now 
Christendom  ;  and  done  so  thoroughly  that 
there  has  been  no  undoing  of  it.  With  the 
exception  of  Turkey,  Europe  was  Christian. 
And  I  will  say  this  also,  that  the  impress  made 
by  Christianity  before  the  Reformation  will 
never  be  surpassed  for  its  peculiar  quality.  No 
races,  while  heathen,   can   ever  again  influence 


22      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

the  world  as  it  has  been  influenced  by  Greek 
thought  and  culture,  or  shape  the  course  of 
history  as  it  has  been  shaped  by  Rome.  But 
the  new  conquest  which  we  are  to  follow,  aims 
at  subduing  by  far  the  largest  populations  of  the 
world  ;  kingdoms,  each  of  which  is  as  gigantic 
as  the  empire  of  Augustus  ;  not  one,  but  every 
continent ;  and,  once  these  kingdoms  have 
accepted  the  Christian  revelation,  there  are  no 
limits  to  the  power  with  which  they  may  inter- 
vene in  all  the  graver  questions  of  life,  with 
which  they  may  colour  and  enrich  the  entire 
thought  of  the  future. 

I  propose  that  we  shall  here  trace  the  dawn 
of  this  modern  enterprise,  the  origin  of  some,  at 
least,  of  the  more  important  Protestant  Missions. 
It  will  be  found  to  be  inseparable  from  the  stor}' 
of  the  men  who  founded  them.  Of  the  after- 
conduct  of  those  missions,  and  their  history 
during  the  later  period  of  this  century,  I  do  not 
intend  to  say  a  word.  That  forms  a  subject  by 
itself,  and  one  on  which  the  mission  literature 
of  the  day  throws  abundant  light.  If  I  succeed 
in  carrying  these  lines  of  advance  up  to  the 
point  where  Christianity  is  fairly  planted  among 
a  heathen  people,  where  we  can  note  the  effect 


THE   DAWN    OF   THE    MODERN    MISSION.      23 

of  the  teaching,  and  see  it  in  actual  contact  with 
the  old  religion,  and  compare  the  two,  my 
object  is  gained.  It  may  be  possible  to  notice 
also  the  results  already  produced  upon  thought 
and  conduct,  the  moral  elevation,  the  modifica- 
tions of  idolatrous  religions  that  are  compelled 
by  the  growth  of  Christian  teaching,  and  the 
indirect,  even  more  than  the  direct  results.  It 
may  be  possible  to  suggest  the  question  whether 
there  are  reasons  for  believing  that  changes 
must  soon  take  place  on  a  vastly  larger  scale, 
and  to  examine  if  there  are  any  indications  that 
point  to  this  era  of  living  conquest,  as  the 
greatest,  if  not  the  last  of  all.  All  that  I  may 
hope  to  do  is  to  follow  unworthily  in  the  steps 
of  my  distinguished  predecessor,  and  to  build 
some  plain  and  temporary  bridge  (until  some  one 
builds  a  better)  between  the  missions  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  the  missions  of  to-day. 

It  is  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years  since  P.iradoxes  of 
Origen  noticed  the  paradoxes  of  Christianity.  Ch'^^stiamty. 
It  was  the  only  universal  religion,  and  it  sprang 
from  the  smallest  and  narrowest  of  sects.  It 
was  a  religion  without  the  sword,  and  ft  con- 
quered the  Roman  legions.  It  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  politics  of  the  time,  yet  it  shaped 


24      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

the  policy  of  the  empire.  Its  King  was  born  in 
a  stable,  and  He  claimed  to  rule  the  world.  The 
centuries  that  followed  have  added  fresh  para- 
doxes of  their  own.  The  greatest  spiritual  out- 
burst since  the  Founder  of  Christianity  had 
appeared,  was  when  the  churches  of  the 
Reformed  grew  up  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  yet 
the  Reformation  was  without  missionary  enter- 
prise, and  almost  without  the  conception  of  a 
mission  to  the  heathen.  The  great  people  of  the 
English  tongue  were  most  in  contact  with  the 
distant  and  foreign  races  of  the  East  and  West ; 
yet  it  was  in  Germany,  without  commerce  and 
without  colonies,  that  men  began  to  think  of 
conquering  new  worlds  for  Christ.  And  when 
we  watch  the  dawn  of  the  modern  mission,  we 
trace  some  of  its  brighest  and  richest  flashes  of 
prophetic  colour  to  that  eighteenth  century 
which  we  have  been  wont  to  regard  as  the  type 
of  prosaic  dulness,  an  arid  moral  soil  from  which 
no  beautiful  enthusiasm  could  ever  spring  until 
the  soil  itself  had  been  convulsed  and  torn  by 
agonies  and  upheavals  that  unsettled  the  world. 
No  doubt,  even  here,  we  miss  much  that  we 
had  been  hitherto  accustomed  to  associate  with 
the  advance  of  Christendom.     There  is  nothing 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE    MODERN    MISSION.      25 

of  the  rapid  rush,  the  ceaseless  propagation  and 
extension,  the  glow  of  a  universal  passion  that 
marked  the  first  three  centuries.  The  heroic 
figures,  the  conflict  of  gigantic  forces,  the  spec- 
tacle of  kingdoms  won  over  to  the  Christian 
side,  and  of  pagan  kings  and  courts  bowing  low 
before  the  Crucified,  the  stories,  trembling  all 
over  with  romance,  of  the  birth  of  Christianity 
among  those  lands  which  hold  to-day  the 
empire  of  the  world,  the  splendour,  and  the 
warm  colouring  of  the  mediaeval  missions,  are 
all  wanting. 

The    conditions    and    the    character   of   the  Changed  form 
mission    have   changed.      We   see   no    rush    of  °.^  ™^''^°^' ^" 

eighteenth 

heathen  races  in  upon  Europe,  as  the  Slavs  century. 
poured  down  their  swarms  across  the  Danube  in 
the  seventh  century,  till  in  the  eighth,  the  huge 
human  lava  stream  had  reached  the  Pelopon- 
nesus and  the  islands  of  the  yEgean.  There 
are  no  royal  princes  on  their  travel  touching  at 
Christian  capitals,  forming  alliance  with  Christ- 
ian princesses,  and  returning  to  found  Christian 
states.  Christian  prisoners  are  no  longer  swept 
away  into  remote  fastnesses  of  heathenism  to 
introduce  their  faith  as  Anschar  found  it  intro- 
duced in  Sweden.     There  are  no  bodies  of  armed 


26      THE    DA^YN    OF   THE   MODERN    MTSSION. 

men  sent  out  to  subdue  heathen  countries,  to 
plant  themselves  as  colonists  upon  the  soil,  and 
raise  up  a  curious  forced  civilisation,  such  as 
was  once  imposed  on  Courland,  Esthonia,  and 
Livonia.  We  shall  find  no  spiritual  orders  of  a 
very  brilliant  but  most  swiftly  corrupted  knight- 
hood, no  shadowy  processions  of  the  Crusaders, 
as  they  flash  and  pass  like  visions  in  a  dream 
through  Europe,  on  their  way  to  Palestine. 
Everything  is  more  prosaic.  Pious  kings  may 
still  be  the  founders  of  a  missionary  enterprise, 
but  with  this  exception,  the  old  order  has 
changed,  giving  place  to  the  new.  There  are 
colonists  that  sail  away  on  perilous  voyages,  to 
settle  among  the  heathen,  but  they  are  men  of 
peace,  seeking  only  "  freedom  to  worship  God." 
There  are  knights,  and  of  a  spirit  as  knightly 
as  in  any  Christian  chivalry,  but  they  are  the 
unarmed  messengers  of  the  Cross. 

To  understand  these  missions  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  we  must  go  back  for  a  little  to 
the  century  preceding. 

Sir  James  Mackintosh  is  reported  to  have 
said  to  Henry  Martyn,  that  he  thought  the 
oriental  world  was  made  Greek  by  the  suc- 
cesses of  Alexander,  in  order  to  prepare  the  way 


THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION.      2/ 

for  Christ.  M.  Renan  gives  another  turn  to  the  Renan. 
same  thought,  when  he  bids  us  notice  that 
primitive  missions  tend  westward,  so  as  to  keep 
the  advantage  of  the  Roman  Empire.  What 
they  mean  is,  that  time  moves  slowly  when  it 
is  big  with  the  plans  of  God.  Epochs  do  not 
come  suddenly,  but  only  when  all  things  are 
ready. 

We   have   begun   our   survey  of  the    modern  The  growth 
mission  at  the  threshold  of  the  sixteenth  cen-  °    .^  "^^?^ 

ary  idea  dur- 

tury  ;  yet  the  first  mission  proper  is  not  till  the  ing  two  cen- 
eighteenth.  It  is  only  slowly,  while  one  century  ^^^'^^^^^ 
melts  away  after  another,  that  the  purpose 
gathers  consistency.  Forces  that  had  been  set 
in  motion  were  working  through  all  that  inter- 
vening period,  but  working  as  steadily  as  the 
light  of  the  morning  works  through  clouds  and 
fogs  and  leaden  skies  into  the  splendour  of 
triumphant  noon. 

There  were  at  least  five  of  these  forces  which  Preparation 
contributed  something  towards  the  issue.  There  ^°''  "^^^s^^"'- 
was  the  printing  press.  There  was  the  Revival 
of  Letters,  which  had  already  created  an  atmos- 
phere for  the  Reformation.  Erasmus,  who  was 
its  prophet,  contributed  more  to  missions  than 
all    the    Reformers.        There   was   the   brilliant 


28      THE   DAWN    OF   THE    MODERN    MISSION. 

series  of  maritime  discoveries.  There  was  the 
Reformation  itself,  pouring  a  breath  of  spring 
over  frozen  Europe.  And  there  was  the 
common  work  of  the  Reformation  and  the 
printing  press  together,  the  distribution  of  the 
Word  of  God  to  the  people.  These  were  all 
working,  but  for  two  hundred  years  their  influ- 
ence upon  the  Christianising  of  the  world  was 
obscure. 
The  Reformers  To  the  Student  of  the  mission  there  is  no 
not  mission-  period  SO  disappointing  and  perplexing  as  the 
age  of  the  Reformation.  Every  great  spiritual 
outburst  until  then,  was  accompanied  by  a  glow 
oi  missionary  splendour.  The  fires  of  every 
Pentecost  burned  into  men's  souls  until  they  also 
took  fire,  and  some  went  everywhere  preaching 
the  Word.^  It  seems  so  natural,  that  we  uncon- 
sciously accept  it  as  a  law  of  spiritual  history. 
Yet,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Reformed  Churches 
were  empty  of  the  missionary  spirit,  and,  on  the 
other,  the  line  of  missionary  enthusiasm  turns 
away  from  them,  and  appears  in  the  great  Latin 
Church  from  which  they  broke  off.  Perhaps 
we  have  under-estimated  the  spiritual  influence 
of  the  Reformation  itself  upon  the  Church  of 
Rome.     Perhaps  the   losses  that   she  had    sus- 


THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION.      29 

tained  in  Europe  impelled  the  better  spirits  to 
seek  for  broader  gains  among  the  heathen.  We 
must  remember  also  that  the  impression  made 
by  the  new  world  was  first  felt  in  Catholic  coun- 
tries, and  that  their  people  were  the  first  to  come 
in  contact  with  the  heathen.  The  fact  remains, 
that  the  only  great  missions  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  were  those  of  the  Jesuits, 
and  that  the  Reformers  did  not  produce  a  single 
missionary.  It  would  be  difficult  to  discover 
even  a  distinctly  missionary  aspiration,  as  we 
use  the  word,  in  their  writings.  Their  cry  for 
light,  was  for  light  within  the  Church.  When 
they  speak  of  the  heathen,  they  mean  the 
Gentiles  as  distinct  from  the  Jews.  The  Bible 
had  taken  the  wings  of  the  press,  but  their  joy 
in  its  freedom  was  not  that  it  might  be  borne 
through  other  skies,  but  be  preached  without 
let  in  Christendom. 

The  men   of  the   Reformation   inherited  the  Reformers 
sad    burthen  of  preceding  centuries.     The   op- 1"^^'^^^^^^  ^ 

^  ^  ,  .  -^    burthen. 

pressed  feeling  of  decay,  of  ruin,  and  confusion, 
the  feeling  of  a  spent  and  worn-out  world  which 
gave  birth  to  so  many  of  the  later  hymns  of 
the  Latin  Church,  had  descended  upon  them. 
Though    the    Saracen    had   just    been    expelled 


30      THE   DAWN    OF    THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

from  Spain,  his  crescent  was  supreme  in 
all  south-eastern  Europe, — supreme,  and  not 
quiescent.  It  was  the  time  of  the  end.  God 
was  delivering  His  Church,  and  then  the  crash 
would  come.  In  the  splendour  of  the  empire 
and  court  of  Charles  V.  they  sometimes  saw 
not  so  much  the  hope  of  a  new  epoch,  as  the 
brilliant  sunset  of  an  old.  The  emperor  him- 
self had  caught  something  of  the  same  feeling, 
and  stepped  from  his  throne  to  the  monastery  of 
San  Yuste,  with  the  sombre  music  of  the  Dies 
ires  in  his  ears.  So  they  wrote  brave  and  com- 
forting words  for  their  flocks,  to  strengthen  their 
faith  against  false  doctrine,  and  to  inspirit  them 
against  some  threatened  inroad  of  the  Turk  ; 
but  the  conception  of  a  mission  to  Turk  and 
heathen  was  buried  out  of  sight  under  this  false 
eschatology.  Nor  can  it  be  forgotten  that 
neither  the  German)^  of  Luther,  nor  the  France 
of  Calvin,  had  any  contact  with  that  broadening 
world  that  filled  the  mind  of  Spain  and  Portugal. 
Somewhere  Livingstone  has  said  that  where  the 
geographer  ends,  the  missionary  begins,  and  that, 
when  we  are  placed  alongside  races  of  men,  our 
heart  learns  to  beat  for  them.  The  heart  of  the 
Reformers    beat    for    the    Church    they    were 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE    MODERN    MISSION.      3 1 

knitting  together  under  infinite  peril  in  Europe ; 
it  was  left  to  their  successors  to  feel  for  that 
great  human  heart  that  beats  to  ours  through  a 
thousand  millions  of  our  fellow-men  who  know 
not  Christ. 

As  neither  sermon  nor  symbol  nor  even  table- 
talk  of  the  Reformation  gave  any  impulse  to 
the  mission,  we  are  prepared  to  find  that  mission 
there  was   none.     The  expedition  which  Ville-  Villegaignon 

s^aignon  induced  out  to  Brazil,  was  not  a  mission,  ^  ^^^^.^ 
^     ^  ,    ,  '  '  colonist. 

but  a  colony  of  men  willing  to  flee  from  oppres- 
sion, and  little  caring  where. 

We  may  wonder  that  the  clever,  gay,  light- 
principled  adventurer  was  ever  entrusted  with 
so  serious  a  task,  or  what  link  there  could  have 
been  between  him  and  the  grave  Genevan 
ministers  and  tradesmen  whom  he  had  begged 
from  Calvin.  We  may  feel  for  the  bitterness  of 
those  poor  exiles,  unhoused  and  unprovisioned, 
sickly,  and  with  eyes  wistfully  strained  towards 
Europe,  when  their  would-be  leader  turned 
against  them,  and  they  had  rather  face  the 
tedious  and  dangerous  journey  home  in  a  leaky 
ship  than  live  .longer  where  they  were.  It  was 
a  pitiful  journey,  the  sea  one  day  rushing  in  like 
a  river ;    on    another,  fire   threatening  to  burn 


■^2      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

them  all  alive ;  the  monkeys  and  parrots  they 
had  on  board  devoured  for  food,  the  sweepings 
of  the  floors  made  into  pottage,  rats  sold  for 
four  crowns  apiece,  a  fortune  offered  for  a  penny- 
worth of  bread  ;  and  the  very  day  that  land  was 
sighted,  the  horrid  whisper  going  round  that 
some  one  must  be  slain  to  feed  the  rest.  It  is  a 
miserable  tragedy,  but  the  breaking-up  of  the 
colony  did  not  affect  the  missionary  spirit  one 
way  or  other ;  nor  did  the  failure,  quite  as 
tragic,  to  form  a  colony  in  Florida  six  years 
after :  and,  with  the  exception  of  an  obscure  and 
unsuccessful  attempt  to  reach  the  Lapps,  not  so 
much  for  propagating  the  Gospel  among  them, 
as  to  give  them  better  teaching  in  the  Christian 
faith, — this  is  all  the  missionary  outcome  of  the 
Reformation  during  that  century  when  it  began. 
In  the  next  we  have  a  distinct  advance  ;  but 
for  the  roots  of  it  we  must  go  back  into  the 
century  preceding.  The  Spaniards  and  the 
Portuguese  were  not  long  left  in  sole  possession 
of  the  brilliant  discoveries  that  made  them 
masters  of  new  worlds.  The  English  and  the 
Dutch,  their  chief  commercial  rivals,  and  vieing 
with  one  another  for  the  supremacy  of  the  seas, 
fitted  out  ship  after  ship,  and  sailed  in  quest  of 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE    MODERN    MISSION.      33 

settlements  and  of  all  the  barbaric  wealth  which 
fired  the  imagination  of  the  West.  They  were 
the  children  of  the  Reformation,  and  besides  the 
love  of  adventure,  they  were  moved  by  deeper 
thoughts,  and  the  deeper  thankfulness  of  men  who 
had  come  face  to  face  with  the  Word  of  God. 

We  shall  follow  the  English  first — born  sea-  English 
rovers,  and  with  the  far  rarer  gift  of  being  good  ^  ^'^^^^^• 
colonists  ;  quite  as  ambitious  moreover  to  possess 
as  they  were  to  discover,  to  raise  new  Englands 
and  settle  in  them  sons  and  daughters  beyond 
the  farthest  seas.  A  vein  of  simple  piety  runs 
through  the  chronicles  of  these  early  voyagers  ; 
but  the  "  keen  sense  of  missionary  duty "  that 
some  have  discovered  is  not  so  clear.  Their 
conception  of  the  mission  was  entirely  sub- 
ordinate to  their  conception  of  the  colony. 
There  was  to  be  a  kind  of  spiritual  clearing 
round  the  settlement.  As  far  as  the  heathen 
came  within  its  ranges,  were  settlers  on  its  lands, 
or  fringed  its  log-houses,  they  were  under  Christ- 
ian care.  The  settlers  became  the  stewards  of 
a  solemn  trust.  Whenever  letters-patent  were 
given,  this  condition  was  specified.  "  The 
principal  end  of  the  plantation,"  so  it  runs  in 
one,  "is  to  invite  and  win  the  natives  of  the 

D 


34      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

country  to  the  Christian  faith."  Thoroughgood, 
who  should  know,  and  who  reflects  the  spirit  of 
that  time,  affirms  that  the  mutual  interchange- 
able pact  and  covenant  of  donor  and  receiver, 
in  all  these  charters,  is  "the  conversion  of  the 
heathen."  The  pact  was  not  always  kept.  The 
governors  of  these  London  Companies  were  in 
the  habit  of  writing  to  New  England  to  keep 
the  settlers  in  mind  of  the  propagation  of  the 
Gospel.  Sometimes  permission  was  asked  to 
found  a  new  colony,  on  the  ground  that  the 
other  plantations  had  done  little  to  convert. 
Eliot  himself  says  that  one  of  the  chief  motives 
to  his  labours  was,  "  to  fulfil  the  covenant  made 
by  the  New  England  people  unto  their  king." 
Even  the  Long  Parliament,  influenced  no  doubt 
by  the  publication  of  Eliot's  narratives  of  his 
work,  created  a  "  Corporation  for  propagating 
the  Gospel  in  New  England,"  ordered  a  national 
collection,  was  joined  by  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge, and  received  its  most  liberal  response 
from  the  army.  The  oath  administered  to  the 
governors  and  deputy-governors  of  the  Com- 
pany bound  them  to  do  their  best  endeavour  to 
draw  in  the  natives  to  the  knowledge  of  God, 
and  the  seal   of  the  Company  was  an   Indian 


THE   DAWN    OF   THE    MODERN    MISSION.      35 

with  extended  hands,  and   the  motto,  "  Come 
over  and  help  us." 

It  is  evident  that  the  ideas  of  the  Reformers  Mistaken 
still  prevailed,  and  men  were  still  overshadowed  "^^^^  °^  ^^^^ 
by  a  mistaken  eschatology.  There  were  earnest 
settlers  in  New  England  before  Eliot,  but  some 
held  that  the  heathen  could  not  be  approached 
without  extraordinary  gifts,  and  others,  that  it 
was  wrong  to  preach  to  them  until  the  Jews  had 
been  first  brought  back ;  so  the  former  waited 
till  the  Indians  would  learn  English,  and  the 
latter  felt  no  concern.  Nor  did  even  men  like 
Williams  rise  higher  than  to  regard  them  as 
heathen  in  their  own  parishes,  and  therefore 
under  their  jurisdiction.  John  Eliot  might  be 
the  apostle  of  the  Indians,  but  he  was  always  the 
minister  of  Roxbury.  More  than  a  century  had 
yet  to  pass  before  a  voice  would  be  heard  rousing 
England,  and  saying,  "  The  world  is  my  parish." 
Out  over  that  narrow  rim  of  their  own  lives,  the 
big  heathen  world  lived  and  grew  brutal,  and 
died,  and  lived  and  died  again  as  the  generations 
painfully  followed  each  other,  and  no  one  said  to 
himself:  How  can  they  believe  in  Him  of  whom 
they  have  not  heard,  and  how  can  they  hear 
without  a  preacher  ? 


36      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

Yet  what  was  done  was  good  as  far  as  it  went ; 
it  was  better  than  doing  nothing,  and  it  was 
beautified  by  examples  of  the  highest  missionary 
heroism.  Later  years  leave  us  nothing  finer 
than  the  figure  of  John  Eliot,  the  Cambridge 
student,  who  sails  for  New  England  seeking 
freedom  of  conscience,  and,  with  comrades  from 
the  same  place,  settling  down  upon  the  steep 
wooded  hill  of  Roxbury,  where  they 

"  Shake  the  depths  of  the  desert  gloom 
With  their  hymns  of  lofty  cheer," 

the  man  ripening  in  wisdom,  the  leading  spirit 
in  the  settlement,  and  also  the  pastor,  bold, 
determined,  yet  becoming  filled  with  a  heavenly 
presence,  and  learning,  as  he  says,  the  mean- 
ing of  three  words,  "  Bear,  forbear,  forgive ; " 
until  strife  melts  away  when  he  appears.  Then, 
the  misgiving  that  he  has  neglected  one  part 
of  his  parish,  and  that  the  Red  Indian  will 
call  him  to  account  at  the  last  day.  And, 
upon  that,  the  uncomplaining  self-denying 
toil  of  more  than  forty  years,  while  he  unravels 
a  language  whose  words,  Mather  says,  have 
been  growing  since  the  confusion  of  tongues ; 
then  sits  for  hours  among  the  red-skins,  while 


THE  DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN   MISSION.       37 

they  ask  him  in  one  breath,  "  How  may  Indians 
come  to  God  ? "  and  in  the  next,  "  Why  is  the 
sea  salt  ?  "  preaches  with  stammering  speech  his 
first  sermon  ;  travels  through  the  endless  woods 
in  every  weather,  and  writes  :  "  I  have  not  been 
dry,  day  nor  night,  although  I  pull  off  my  boots, 
wring  my  stockings,  on  with  them  again,  and  so 
continue,"  and  he  continues  until  his  "praying 
Indians  "  are  known  about  the  colony,  and  build 
their  own  houses,  "as  well  behaved  and  well 
clothed,"  the  governor  reports,  "as  the  other 
settlers,"  some  of  them  even  learning  Greek  and 
Latin,  while  he  patiently  toils  at  his  Indian 
Bible,  his  hair  white  now,  and  his  eager  figure 
stooped,  too  infirm  even  to  act  as  pastor,  but  still 
able  to  write  to  Robert  Boyle,  "  My  understand- 
ing leaves  me,  my  memory  fails  me,  but  I  thank 
God,  rny  charity  holds  out."  No  sweeter  saying 
than  that  has  been  dropped  upon  the  confines  of 
infirm  old  age ;  no  more  helpful  psalm  of  life 
can  be  borne  round  the  world,  than  that  brave 
refrain  of  his :  "  Prayer  and  pains  through  faith 
in  Jesus  Christ  can  do  anything."  No  man  but 
would  wish  to  say  with  him,  "  Were  I  sure  to 
go  to  heaven  to-morrow,  I  would  do  what  I  am 
doing  to-day." 


38       THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    T^HSSION. 

If  we  now  turn  to  the  Dutch,  we  find  them 
working  out  the  mission  after  their  own  fashion, 
but  under  the  shadow  of  the  same  mistakes.  In 
the  East  an  island,  or  a  fragment  of  the  mainland, 
was  wrested  from  some  other  power,  from  adven- 
turers of  Europe,  or  potentates  upon  the  spot. 
A  Dutch  settlement  was  planted  ;  the  district 
with  all  its  people  became  a  Dutch  parish,  and 
among  them,  but  not  beyond  them,  the  Gospel 
was  preached  with  great  vigour.  These  Dutch 
settlers  were  not  hindered  by  theological  opinions 
about  the  Jews,  nor  indeed  by  tender  scruples  of 
any  kind.  They  took  possession  of  the  spacious 
churches  of  their  Roman  Catholic  predecessors, 
and  apparently  of  their  congregations-;  simply 
placing  over  them  the  new  title  of  "  Reformed," 
and  not  one  in  ten  of  the  ministers  (for  it  would 
scarcely  be  correct  to  call  them  missionaries), 
understood  the  language  of  the  people  ;  but  on 
the  report  of  the  schoolmaster  that  the  people 
could  repeat  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, and  a  grace,  baptism  was  adminis- 
tered without  hesitation.  As  they  were  so  few, 
the  native  ministers  undertook  the  greater  part 
of  the  work,  and  would  baptise  hundreds  of 
children  at  a  time,  sweeping  in  from  the  highway 


THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION.      39 

any  whom  they  found  to  act  as  sponsors.  They 
prohibited  the  erection  of  temples,  imposed 
penalties  on  heathen  ceremonies,  put  in  irons 
any  Christians  who  retained  the  practice  of 
idolatry,  proscribed  the  Romish  religion  as 
firmly  as  the  Buddhist,  allowed  caste  churches  to 
be  built,  and  made  subscription  to  the  Helvetic 
confession  the  condition  of  the  smallest  govern- 
ment employment,  or  even  of  farming  an  acre 
of  land.  Some  of  them  were  men  of  great 
learning,  the  earlier  in  the  field  were  certainly 
men  of  sincerity  and  zeal ;  they  compiled  cate- 
chisms, and  they  laboured  bravely  to  put  the 
Bible  into  the  hands  of  their  own  people,  trans- 
lating from  it  into  Tamil,  Cingalese,  Malay, 
and  Formosan  ;  they  made  the  education  of  the 
people  a  feature  of  their  work,  and  they  had  the 
full  support  of  the  authorities.  Eliot  and  his 
friends  may  have  placed  the  standard  for 
admission  to  the  Church  too  high,  but  these 
men  swung  round  into  a  laxity  so  great  that  Great  laxity, 
admission  to  the  Church  ceased  to  have  any 
spiritual  meaning  whatever.  At  one  time  there 
were  three-quarters  of  a  million  of  these  Christ- 
ians in  Ceylon,  Java,  Sumatra,  Antigua,  and 
Formosa,  but  not  one  in  two  thousand  of  these 


40      THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 


Eighteenth 
century. 


was  a  communicant.  The  thin  veneer  of  the 
creed  and  the  commandments  soon  wore  away. 
The  immorahties  and  superstitions  of  the  Christ- 
ians were  not  to  be  distinguished  from  those  of 
the  Pagan  ;  the  numbers  dwindled  down,  and 
the  churches  fell  into  decay,  and  were  lost  even 
to  view,  like  the  converts,  in  the  tangled  growth 
of  the  jungle.  The  theory  could  scarcely  have 
been  wrought  into  practice  under  more  favour- 
able conditions,  but  it  was  vicious  to  the  core. 

While  Dutch  settlers  and  merchant  adven- 
turers were  crushing  the  mission  out  of  existence 
by  false  methods,  and  English  colonists  were 
sometimes  attempting  the  conversion  of  the 
Indians,  the  seventeenth  century  had  drifted 
into  the  eighteenth,  and  we  pass  from  Baxter 
and  Alleyne  to  Butler  and  Berkeley. 

In  the  next  century  we  find  a  distinct 
advance,  of  a  superficial  character  it  is  true,  and 
on  wrong  lines,  yet  most  noteworthy.  The  true 
beginning  of  what  we  now  recognise  as  mission- 
ary work  must  be  put  almost  a  century  later, 
and  with  two  brief  episodes  that  it  covers, 
I  must  close  this  lecture. 

It  was  in  Germany,  which  had  no  shipping 
trade,  no  sea-rovers,  no  colonists,  and  no  direct 


THE   DAWN   OF   THE  MODERN    MISSION.      4I 

links  with  heathen  countries,  that  we  first  notice 
some  conception  of  the  mission  as  we  understand 
it  now.  There  was  a  goldsmith,  named  Heyiing,  Heyiing. 
who  had  a  modest  business  in  the  town  of  Liibeck, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
who  gave  his  son  Peter  the  best  education  he 
could  afford,  at  the  then  famous  High  School  of 
that  free  port.  Young  Heyling's  abilities  were 
so  marked  that,  before  he  left  school,  he  was 
engaged  by  a  wealthy  citizen  as  tutor  to  his 
sons  ;  and  soon  after,  like  many  of  his  town- 
folk,  he  left  Lubeck  to  pursue  his  studies 
abroad.  He  remained  for  four  years  at  Paris,  in 
.charge  of  some  reading  men  (his  own  neigh- 
bours), and  here  he  made  the  acquaintance,  and 
afterwards  the  friendship  of  Hugo  Grotius,  the 
Swedish  Ambassador.  The  influence  of  Grotius 
over  the  young  man  was  profound,  and  it  was 
not  confined  to  Heyiing.  Other  young  men  were 
drawn  under  its  spell,  until  there  was  a  group  of 
seven,  all  lawyers,  and  all  from  Lubeck,  living 
in  the  closest  fellowship,  drawn  together  by  • 
common  spiritual  longings,  and  proposing,  with 
a  beautiful  enthusiasm,  to  carry  light  into  the 
world  beyond  them.  They  were  young,  but 
they  were  beyond    the   age    of  mere   romantic 


42      THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN   MISSION. 

dreams  ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  some  of 
them  put  their  resolutions  to  the  test.  Van 
Dome  went  to  Jerusalem.  Unhappily,  upon 
the  way,  he  seems  to  have  fallen  into  a  misery  of 
troubled  thought,  that  prevented  all  missionary 
activity.  A  touching  letter  to  his  companions 
reveals  his  state  of  mind,  and  when  he  left  the 
East,  he  turned  up  at  Padua,  where  he  became 
Pro-rector  of  the  University,  and  finally  held 
office  under  the  burghers  of  Liibeck  at  the  town 
of  Mollen,  where  he  died. 

Blumenhageii  went  to  Turkey,  where  he  seems 
to  have  met  a  violent  death,  and  of  him  we 
have  no  further  record. 

Heyling,  leaving  Paris  in  1632,  went  to 
Abyssinia  by  way  of  Malta,  where  his  simplicity 
and  earnestness  gained  him  friends  in  the  most 
unlikely  quarters.  A  knight  of  Malta  was 
ready  to  bear  him  company  on  his  mission,  but 
missed  the  ship,  and  the  Roman  Inquisitor  gave 
him  a  letter  of  commendation  to  his  ecclesiastical 
brethren,  although  with  sore  misgiving,  as  he 
said,  that  if  Heyling  were  to  do  as  much  for 
him,  and  if  he,  a  Capuchin  monk,  were  to  appear 
in  the  streets  of  Liibeck,  he  would  be  stoned  to 
death.       At   Alexandria,    Heyling   pursued    his 


THE  DAWN   OF  THE  MODERN   MISSION.      43 

Studies  in  Arabic  ;  and,  while  stoutly  maintain- 
ing the  Lutheran  faith,  won  over  the  patriarch 
to  his  plans,  and  by  his  advice,  set  off  to  visit 
the  libraries  of  the  Coptic  monasteries,  twenty 
days'  journey  into  the  desert.  Here  he  added 
the  study  of  Syriac  to  Arabic,  and  pursued  his 
quiet  controversies,  pointing  out  the  errors  of 
the  clergy  from  their  own  Church  Fathers, 
but  with  so  much  gentleness  and  love,  that  he 
gained  a  higher  place  in  their  esteem. 

Travellers  sometimes  came  by,  mostly  of  the 
ecclesiastical  order,  and  stared  at  this  German 
student  qualifying  himself  to  be  a  Protestant 
missionary,  while  he  lived  with  the  monks  of 
the  Thebaid  ;  and  some  of  them  were  afterwards 
ill  at  ease,  and  endeavoured  to  procure  his  arrest. 
We  fancy  we  can  detect  a  smile,  as  he  relates 
how  he  outwitted  the  Egyptian  police,  he 
taking  himself  with  his  precious  MSB.  into  the 
Chapel,  which  they  were  unwilling  to  profane. 
"Abyssinia,"  he  wrote,  "is  still  far  off!"  and 
while  the  way  was  getting  ready,  he  returned  to 
Cairo,  and  journeyed  as  far  as  Jerusalem,  holding 
controversy  there,  after  his  honest  fashion,  with 
both  the  Syrian  and  the  Roman  prelates.  It  was 
approaching  the  end  of   1634  before  he  could 


44      THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

fulfil  his  passionate  desire,  and  then  he  attached 
himself  to  an  Abyssinian  Embassy,  returning 
from  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  with  a  new 
Abanas.  On  the  way,  they  learnt  that  a 
Roman  Catholic  patriarch  was  captive  on  a 
neighbouring  island,  held  in  durance  by  a 
speculative  pasha,  who  bargained  for  a  ransom. 

To  Heyling  the  temptation  was  irresistible. 
He  paid  a  visit  to  the  prisoner,  who  seems  to 
have  been  well  treated,  and  he  records  with 
satisfaction  their  debate  on  points  of  doctrine, 
and  how  he  changed  it  from  Latin  to  Arabic, 
so  that  those  present  might  understand. 

With  his  entrance  into  Abyssinia  his  letters 
cease.  He  seems  to  have  remained  for  years, 
to  have  won  the  confidence  of  the  king,  who 
presented  him  with  a  stately  residence,  and  if 
Bruce  is  to  be  believed,  he  was  regarded  as  the 
real  ruler  of  the  kingdom.  We  can  be  certain 
that  he  used  his  influence  fearlessly  on  the  side 
of  truth,  and  there  is  evidence  that  it  did  not 
prevent  him  from  being  universally  beloved  as 
Dr.  Peter."  Dr.  Peter.  A  young  Abyssinian  made  the  long 
journey  to  Amsterdam  in  1653,  that  he  might 
see  the  Lubeck  from  which  his  teacher  had 
come,   and    hold    fellowship   with    its    citizens. 


THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION.      45 

"  Oh,  Dr.  Peter,  Dr.  Peter,"  he  cried,  as  he  sprang 
up,  his  face  bright  with  joy,  yet  wet  with  tears, 
when  Samarius,  the  Mezzofanti  of  that  day, 
asked  of  him  if  perhaps  he  knew  Peter  Heyling. 
Of  the  seven  Lubeck  lawyers  who  had  given 
their  hearts  to  the  mission  in  most  unHkely 
Paris,  he  alone  fulfilled  the  trust.  We  know 
that  when  he  found  the  Ethiopian  language 
used  only  by  the  clergy  and  the  learned,  he 
proceeded  to  translate  the  New  Testament  into 
the  Amharic,  which  the  people  understood.  We 
know  that,  200  years  afterwards,  MSS.  of  this 
version  were  still  in  circulation.  We  know  too 
that  pains  were  taken  at  Rome,  then  certain  to 
be  well  informed,  to  prevent  the  news  of  his 
success  from  reaching  Germany  ;  and  there  our 
knowledge  ends.  In  his  bravery,  his  patience, 
his  tact,  his  learning  and  devotion,  he  recalls  the 
earlier  days  and  heroes  of  the  mission  ;  in  his 
broad,  loving,  reconciling  spirit,  he  anticipates 
the  later.  It  was  at  least  no  common  man 
of  whom  Grotius  wrote,  that  he  could  not 
sufficiently  admire  the  greatness  of  his  soul ;  it 
was  no  common  missionary  who  left  the  most 
brilliant  city  in  Europe,  to  shut  himself  for  life 
within  a  jealous  African  kingdom,  content  if  he 


46      THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

might  sow  the  seed  of  the  Word,  and  of  his  own 
life,  even  by  the  wayside. 

About  the  time  that  Heyling  finally  dis- 
appears from  view,  a  young  Austrian  Baron  met 
a  young  Ratisbon  advocate  in  a  bookseller's 
shop  of  that  city.  They  were  both  eager, 
enthusiastic,  and  on  fire  for  Christ ;  they  were 
both  mourning  over  the  deadness  of  the  Church. 
Baron  von  Welz  opened  his  heart,  and  unfolded 
his  plans.  He  would  draw  the  Lutheran  and 
Reformed  together,  and  end  the  weary  strife 
that  kept  the  Churches  barren.  He  would  also 
found  a  society  for  preaching  the  Gospel  to  the 
heathen.  It  would  be  a  Jesus  Society,  rallying 
to  itself  those  whom  the  love  of  Jesus  constrained 
to  the  work.  Gichtel  fell  in  with  the  idea.  It 
was  his  habit  to  fall  in  with  most  novelties, 
either  in  work  or  religion,  and  there  were  few 
extravagances  of  the  mystical  school  into  which 
he  did  not  contrive  to  fall,  and  out  of  which 
he  did  not  manage  to  struggle.  Von  Welz 
deserved  a  wiser  comrade,  but  the  two  men  put 
their  heads  together  and  developed  a  scheme. 
The  missionaries  need  not  be  versed  in  the 
learning  of  the  schools.  They  might  be  laymen, 
even  pious  artisans,  but  they  must  be  willing  to 


THE   DAWN   OF   THE    MODERN    MISSION.      47 

go  anywhere.  Von  Welz  would  furnish  the 
capital  of  30,000  thalers,  and  the  interest  would 
support  the  missionaries  in  training.  This  was 
the  plan  which  they  sent  to  the  foremost  theo- 
logians in  Germany,  Von  Welz  following  it  up 
by  two  appeals  "  to  all  right-minded  Christians 
of  the  Augsburg  Conference,"  and  they  waited 
the  result.  Ursinus,  one  of  the  leading  men  of 
his  day,  and  Gichtel's  antagonist  at  Ratisbon, 
was  unsparing  in  his  condemnation.  "The 
heathen,"  he  declared,  "  brought  their  fall  upon 
themselves.  The  holy  things  of  God's  Word 
were  not  to  be  cast  before  such  swine ;  any 
conversion  that  had  ever  been  meant  for  them 
was  accomplished  long  ago  in  the  days  of  the 
Apostles.  As  for  the  Society  of  the  Love  of 
Jesus,  God  save  us  from  it."  Von  Welz  was 
wounded  in  spirit,  but  the  fire  was  not  quenched. 
He  withdrew  to  Holland,  and  issued  a  new 
appeal.  It  was  to  the  German  students  at 
Amsterdam,  but  it  fell  flat  like  the  rest ;  and 
finding,  as  many  true  and  eager  spirits  have 
found,  that  he  was  before  his  time,  he  resolved 
to  carry  out  his  society  in  his  own  person,  was 
ordained  an  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  took  ship 
for  Surinam,  and  died. 


48      THE   DAWN   OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

Progress  ?  We  have  traversed  two  centuries,  and,  as  yet, 
we  see  no  change  in  the  sombre  circle  of  heathen 
that  met  our  eye  when  the  sixteenth  century 
began.  There  are  a  few  faint  flashes  of  dawn, 
quivers  and  starts  of  hght  that  shoot  across  the 
dark,  but  leave  no  breaking  in  the  clouds  ;  not 
sunlight  some  of  them,  but  fickle  as  auroras, 
gleaming  with  mock  brilliance,  then  flickering 
and  vanishing  away.  We  may  say  that,  till  this 
time,  the  Churches  of  the  Reformation  have  not 
thrown  themselves  into  the  struggle  with  a  single 
false  religion.  Certainly  there  is  no  school  like 
history  for  teaching  patience.  The  way  we  have 
followed  has  been  lighted  more  by  failure  than 
success,  by  beacons  to  warn  rather  than  by 
inspirations  to  advance.  The  sneer,  "  manu- 
factured converts,"  was  often  the  response  of  his 
contemporaries  to  the  work  of  patient,  saintly 
Eliot ;  the  cry  of  an  unappeasable  distrust,  the 
suspicion  of  the  faithless,  who  in  every  age  have 
nought  to  say  but,  "  How  can  these  things  be  ?  " 
There  has  been  no  clear  purpose  taking  hold  of 
the  Church,  and  shining,  luminous  like  the  sun, 
as  all  true  thoughts  must  shine,  if  they  are  to 
guide  men  into  those  upward  paths  where  new 
worlds  will  swing  into  their  ken.     And  yet  we 


THE   DAWN    OF    THE    MODERN    MISSION.      49 

must  beware  of  believing  that  there  has  been  no 
advance.     The    period    that  was  ushered  in  by 
the  Reformation   was  one  of  the  seed-times  of 
the  world.     Many  movements   have   combined 
to  break  up  the  crust  of  stiffened    and    frozen 
thought ;  new  ideas  were  sure  to  take    root   in 
the  loosened  soil,  and  that  was  what  happened 
to    the    mission.       The     heathen    were    being 
brought    home    to    the    consciousness    of    the 
Church.       Cromwell    dreamt    of    a    missionary  Cromwell. 
college,  and  mapped  out  the  world  into  sections 
for     Christian    conquest.       Ten     years    before 
Gregory  XV.  founded  the  College  of  the  Pro- 
paganda,  Walseus    established    a    seminary   at  Waleeus. 
Leyden  for  the  education  of  Christian  mission- 
aries ;  Von  Welz  proposed  that  three  missionary 
professors  should  be  attached  to  every  university, 
and   drew   up   an   outline   of  the   subjects  they 
would  teach.     Grotius  wrote  his  treatise  on  the  Grotius. 
Evidences  for  the  use  of  the  Dutch  clergy  going 
to  the  East.      Boyle,  w^ho   founded  the   Royal  Boyle. 
Society,  defrayed    the    cost   of  more   than    one 
translation  of  the  Scriptures,  kept  up  a  constant 
correspondence  with  the  missionary  colonists  in 
New  England,  and,  at  his  death,  left  what  was 
then  a  fortune,  ^^5400,  for  the  propagation  of  the 


dawn. 


50     THE   DAWN    OF   THE   MODERN    MISSION. 

Gospel.  Leibnitz  inserted  among  the  statutes 
of  the  Berlin  Academy,  a  plan  for  sending 
missionaries  out  to  China.  When  Baxter  heard 
of  Eliot  labouring  among  the  Indians,  he  wrote 
that  there  were  many  prepared  to  go  to  any 
unbelieving  nation,  preaching  Christ. 
Only  signs  of  These  are  signs  of  the  dawn,  and  among  these 
signs  the  seventeenth  century  closes.  When 
the  next  century  opens,  we  shall  see  the  begin- 
ning of  the  first  real  struggle.  We  shall  see 
adventurers  from  Europe  attempting  the  over- 
throw of  one  of  the  firmest,  oldest,  most  splendid, 
and  yet  most  misleading  of  the  great  religions 
of  the  heathen. 

"  Gather  you,  gather  you,  angels  of  God — 
Freedom  and  mercy  and  truth  ; 
Come  !  for  the  earth  is  grown  coward  and  old. 

Come  down  and  renew  us  her  youth. 
Wisdom,  self-sacrifice,  daring  and  love. 
Haste  to  the  battlefield,  stoop  from  above, 
To  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand." 


II. 

THE   TRUE    CONCEPTION    OF   THE 
MISSION. 

ZlEGENBALG. 


II. 

THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF    THE   MISSION. 

ZlEGENBALG. 

I  HAVE  already  had  occasion  to  notice  that  the 
birth  of  spiritual  life,  and  the  birth  of  the 
mission  of  the  Church,  usually  fall  together, 
and  that  the  one  becomes  the  parent  and 
supporter  of  the  other.  In  the  subject  before  us 
this  evening,  we  are  to  have  a  fresh  illustration 
of  this  historical  principle. 

In  the  later  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  Reaction 
there  had  sprung  up  at  many  points  a  reaction  ^^^^^^^  ^^^^ 
against  the  formal,  dry,  lifeless  orthodoxy  that 
reigned  over  the  Church  in  Germany.  A  purely 
logical  theology  controlled  the  pulpit,  and  dried 
up  the  springs  of  spiritual  life  ;  the  sermons 
were  strings  of  formal  propositions  formally 
stated,  while  the  Bible  was  scarcely  mentioned  ; 
and  candidates  for  the  ministry  did  not  profess 
to  understand  the  language  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment,   broke     down    in     the     most     superficial 


54      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION. 

examination  of  their  acquaintance  with  Biblical 
Greek,  and  frequently  did  not  know  a  word  of 
Greek  at  all.  The  troubles  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  as  it  swept  across  the  land,  broke  through 
this  religious  crust,  and  men  sought  for  some- 
thing deeper  and  more  sustaining.  As  teachers 
rose  up,  touched  by  this  new  impulse,  a  powerful 
movement  passed  over  Germany.  It  was  nick- 
Pietism,  named  Pietism,  and  was  treated  with  hostility, 
and  frequently  with  rigour.  Social  and  eccle- 
siastical persecutions  broke  out  against  it,  and 
to  be  a  Pietist  was  commonly  to  be  a  mark 
for  reproach,  and  scorn,  and  coarse  raillery,  if 
nothing  worse.  There  were  noble-minded  and 
great-hearted  men,  however,  among  the  leaders  ; 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century 
their  influence  was  remarkable,  and  was  rapidly 
rising.  The  University  of  Halle  was  entirely  in 
their  hands,  and  was  fed  by  students  from  the 
High  School  at  Berlin,  which  was  under  the 
same  control.  Francke,  best  known  to  the 
present  generation  by  his  Orphan  House  and 
his  life  of  faith,  was  the  soul  of  the  movement  at 
Halle  ;  at  Berlin  it  centred  in  Spener,  chaplain 
to  the  king,  and  probably  the  most  famous 
pastor  of  his  time,  and  Lange,  the  rector  of  the 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      55 

High  School;  and  everywhere  it  drew  to  itself 
the  more  serious  and  earnest  natures,  and  espe- 
cially the  ardour  of  the  young. 

While  this  movement  gathered  strength,  on  Frederic  IV. 
a  March  evening  in  the  year  1705,  King  °^  ^^'"^^'^• 
Frederic  IV.  of  Denmark  sat  in  deep  thought 
in  his  palace.  As  he  looked  over  the  papers 
on  the  table,  his  eye  rested  on  the  petition 
of  a  poor  widow.  Her  husband  and  eldest 
son  had  been  murdered  in  a  native  outbreak 
at  Tranquebar,  and  she  sought  redress  and 
help.  The  circumstance  was  slight,  and  might 
have  made  little  impression  on  a  mind  pre- 
occupied, but  that  the  heathen  population  added 
by  adventure  or  conquest  to  Denmark  had 
already  weighed  upon  the  king.  They  could  be 
found  at  many  points  of  his  dominions,  in 
Greenland,  India,  and  St.  Thomas,  and  they  had 
filled  him  with  misgivings,  that  he  had  not  acted 
fairly  by  them,  that,  as  a  Christian  Prince,  he 
ought  to  have  sent  messengers  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  them.  He  was  engaged  in  war  with 
Sweden,  and  perhaps  the  seriousness  of  his  posi- 
tion at  the  time  made  his  conscience  sensitive  ;  a 
sudden  conviction  smote  through  his  mind,  and, 
like  a  famous  king  before  him,  ''  his  countenance 


6      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   ^^SSION. 


was  changed,  and  his  thoughts  troubled  him." 
For  ninety  years  there  had  been  a  Danish  East 
India  Company,  under  charter  and  protection 
of  the  Crown  ;  for  ninety  years  Danish  ships 
had  sailed  to  Tranquebar,  Danish  merchants 
had  traded  and  grown  rich  in  it,  Danish  soldiers 
had  defended  it,  and  Danish  governors  had 
ruled  it ;  but  no  ship  had  ever  carried  a  Danish 
missionary  to  preach  the  Gospel.  For  these 
ninety  years  the  Christian  conscience  of  the 
land  had  been  asleep,  and  it  was  now  high 
time  to  awake.  Penitent,  perplexed,  and  rest- 
Lutkens.  less,  he  summoned  Dr.  Liitkens,  his  chaplain, 
who  found  him  poring  over  a  map  of  the  coast 
of  Coromandel.  Could  the  chaplain  procure  him 
men,  he  would  send  out  apostles  to  the  Indies. 
He  had  taken  his  decision  with  a  hasty  energ}% 
for,  while  he  was  musing,  the  fire  had  burned, 
and  Liitkens  with  a  joy  he  did  not  hide,  heaped, 
he  says,  fuel  on  the  fire.  Yet  he  could  not 
answer  the  king's  question.  The  Church  of 
Denmark  was  no  more  alive  to  mission  work 
than  other  Churches  of  that  time,  and  such  men 
as  were  wanted  were  scarcely  to  be  found.  He 
paused  for  a  moment,  then  said,  ''  Send  me  !  " 
The   king   was    moved    by  the  old   man's  self- 


THE   TRUE    CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      57 

sacrifice,  but  he  could  not  part  with  him.  He 
reckoned  on  his  counsel,  he  must  have  him  by 
his  side  ;  it  was  younger  men  he  wanted,  who 
could  face  the  hardships  and  the  climate  with 
less  risk.  "  Get  us  the  men,"  he  said  ;  where- 
upon Lutkens  went  out  to  seek.  Such  is  the 
story  as  it  is  popularly  told,  and,  although  some 
of  the  details  are  wanting  in  historical  authority, 
the  main  facts  are  unquestioned. 

Dr.  Lutkens  found  that  he  had  undertaken  a 
difficult  task  ;  himself  a  German,  he  naturally 
turned  to  two  of  his  old  colleagues  at  Berlin.  His 
correspondents  took  the  matter  up  with  warmth, 
and,  on  consulting  with  their  brother  ministers, 
it  appeared  they  might  return  a  favourable 
answer.  The  man  who  had  been  unconsciously 
trained  for  this  work,  was  at  the  moment  in 
their  neighbourhood,  and  was  about  to  leave  it. 
One  more  illustration  of  the  curious  exactitude 
with  which  the  parts  of  God's  plans  fit  in  to  one 
another. 

The  little  Saxon  town  of  Pulsnitz,  not  far 
from  Dresden,  lies  in  a  happy  valley  among 
woods  and  bright  green  meadows,  and  some- 
what out  of  the  world,  to  which,  nevertheless, 
about  once  in  a  hundred  years,  it  has  regularly 


58      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION. 

made  its  contribution,  blossoming  like  a  century- 
plant  in  some  famous  name,  then  modestly 
withdrawing  out  of  sight.  It  was  on  one  of 
Ziegenbalg.  those  great  occasions  that  Bartholomew  Ziegen- 
balg  was  born,  "on  St.  John's  Day,  1683." 
Among  his  earliest  recollections,  there  was  one 
so  far  back  that  it  would  have  been  dim  but  for 
its  impressiveness.  His  mother  summoned  the 
four  children  to  her  death-bed,  and  spoke  to 
them  with  a  touching  solemnity.  He  could 
vividly  recall  that  she  said :  "  My  children, 
I  have  laid  by  a  great  treasure  for  you,  a  very 
great  treasure."  "  A  treasure,"  cried  the  eldest 
girl,  full  of  wonder,  "  and  where  may  it  be, 
mother?"  "Seek  it  in  the  Bible,  my  children," 
she  replied,  "  and  you  will  find  it ;  there  is  not 
a  page  I  have  not  wet  with  my  tears." 

In  due  time  Ziegenbalg  entered  the  High 
School  at  Gorlitz,  where  he  owed  much  to  the 
influence  of  an  older  student  friend,  a  man  of 
warm  Christian  feeling  and  sound  judgment, 
who  had  been  touched  by  the  new  life  spring- 
ing up  in  the  Church.  After  his  friend  left, 
he  passed  through  a  long  and  trying  period  of 
spiritual  anxiety.  It  was  not  till  after  nine 
months  of  incessant  inward  conflict  that  he  could 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      59 

write,  "  At  last  the  joy  and  comfortable  light  of 
the  Gospel  shone  upon  my  soul."  Slender 
means  and  a  sickly  constitution  were  constantly 
recurring  hindrances  to  his  progress  at  the 
University.  He  was  a  short  time  in  Berlin,  and 
one  session  at  Halle,  but  there  was  other  than 
college  training  to  be  had,  and  he  himself  was 
beginning  to  feel  he  was  being  prepared  for 
something,  he  could  not  tell  what,  beyond. 
Lange  and  Francke  were  unceasing  in  their 
helpful  interest  and  friendship  ;  they  directed  his 
reading,  dealt  with  his  difficulties,  and  finally 
Francke  procured  for  him  a  tutorship  at 
Merseburg. 

At  Halle  he  had  been  taught  that  men  re- 
ceived the  Gospel  in  order  to  spread  it,  that  he 
might  begin  at  once.  So  in  Merseburg,  "  which 
hated  Pietism,"  he  organised  Bible  readings 
and  prayer  meetings,  which  speedily  received 
the  support  of  all  the  principal  people  of  the 
town  ;  a  Bible-class,  that  was  opened  for  boys 
of  the  High  School  at  their  own  request,  and  so 
many  young  persons  gathered  about  him  for 
instruction,  that  he  was  obliged  to  seek  help. 

Ultimately,  not  being  over  strong,  his  Pietist 
friends  found  a  quiet  parish  for  him,  twenty  miles 


60      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION. 

from  Berlin,  where  he  was  to  take  the  pastor's 
place  during  temporary  absence,  all  uncon- 
scious that  his  career  was  being  fixed  in  another 
country  by  events  of  which  he  had  no  tidings, 
and  could  have  no  conception.  Lange  was 
commissioned  by  his  brother  ministers  to  write 
to  Ziegenbalg  and  propose  that  he  should  go  as 
a  missionary  either  to  Africa  or  to  St.  Thomas, 
telling  him  of  the  king's  desire,  and  that  their 
choice  had  fallen  upon  him  and  his  old  fellow- 
student,  Plutschau.  Ziegenbalg's  first  impulse 
was  to  draw  back  ;  it  was  impossible  he  could  be 
fitted  for  so  peculiar  a  calling — then,  characteris- 
tically, he  yielded.  If  it  was  God's  doing,  he 
would  not  resist  Him,  but  only  prayed  that  he 
might  be  convinced  he  was  right.  The  two 
young  students  were  accepted,  and  a  small  sum 
was  enclosed  to  each  for  travelling  expenses. 
The  hasty  preparations  were  soon  made ;  there 
was  no  time  for  farewells.  Ziegenbalg  could  not 
even  take  his  beloved  books,  and  leaving  behind 
an  only  sister,  and  Plutschau  an  aged  mother, 
they  reached  Copenhagen  on  the  i6th  October, 
and  found  that  it  was  neither  Africa  nor  St. 
Thomas  they  were  to  sail  for,  but  Tranquebar ! 
Nothing  had  been  heard  of  missionary  success, 


THE  TRUE  CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      6 1 

and,  in  the  slow  communication  of  these  days, 
Eliot's  work  among  the  Indians,  though  begun 
fifty  years  before,  did  not  get  known  in  Germany 
till  some  time  after  Ziegenbalg's    death.     The 
missionaries  did  not  know  it,  but  it  appears  that, 
by  the  same  vessel  in  which  they  sailed,  secret 
instructions  were  despatched   by  the  company, 
authorising  the  Governor  of  Tranquebar  to  offer 
every   opposition,  and,  in    effect,  to   crush   the 
mission.    The  journey  to  India  was  then  a  serious  Voyage  to 
matter.     Sailing   on  the    29th  November,  they   ^ 
did  not  reach  Tranquebar  till  the  9th  July  ;  but, 
despite  storm   and  perils,  and    the  hostility  of 
both  captain  and  chaplain,  their  diaries  record  : 
"  When  it  is  calm,  we  spend  our  whole  time  in 
wholesome    meditations    and    study   of    God's 
Word  ;  morning,  mid-day,  and  evening  we  sing, 
pray,  and  praise  Him."    The  storms  only  deepen 
their  sense  of  rest  in   God  ;  the  ship  becomes 
their  "university,"  where  they  "learn   to  know 
the  Bible  not  only  in  the  letter,  but  in  its  inner 
power    and   sweetness."      Ziegenbalg    begins    a 
book  on  Wisdom,  a  subject  suggested  by  the 
name  of  the  ship  {Sophia),  and  Plutschau  com- 
mences another  on  Truth,  as  seen  in  the  harmony 
between    the    kingdoms    of    nature    and    grace. 


62      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE  MISSION. 

Comparing  as  they  write,  and  turning  wistful 
thoughts  onward  to  their  work,  the  time  passes 
round  till  they  lie  in  the  harbour  of  Tranquebar. 
Ziegenbalg,  greatly  moved,  saw  the  heathen  in 
groups  on  the  shore,  and  felt  his  heart  stirred  at 
the  sight  of  the  goal  to  which  all  his  life  had  led. 
First  The  captain  rigidly  carried  out   his  instruc- 

Protestant       tions.     Passcngcrs,  crew,  and   freis^ht   were   all 

missionaries  o        ^  ^  o 

in  India.  landed.    Hours  turned  into  days,  the  Indian  sun 

burned  on  the  oily  waters  between  the  mission- 
aries and  the  beach,  but  no  boat  came  for  them, 
nor  were  they  allowed  to  land  in  any,  till  at  last, 
the  captain  of  a  ship  lying  near  had  compassion 
on  them,  brought  them  to  his  own  vessel,  and 
had  them  rowed  to  land. 

It  was  early  in  the  morning,  and  they  were 
ordered  to  remain  in  a  house  before  the  gate  till 
the  governor  had  leisure  to  come  in  the  after- 
noon. On  his  arrival,  assuming  the  utmost 
roughness,  he  asked.  What  brought  them  there  ? 
They  were  a  mere  nuisance.  Had  they  any 
authority  ?  What  could  he  do  ?  That  was  no 
place  for  missionaries.  They  were  not  wanted. 
What  could  the  king  know  about  such  things  ? 
And  so  turned  upon  his  heel  and  withdrew  with 
his  suite  to  the  Fort. 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      63 

Petrified  by  this  contempt  for  the  king's 
mandate,  as  much  as  cast  down  by  so  unex- 
pected a  reception,  the  two  young  men  slowly 
followed,  expecting  that  some  one  would  inform 
them  of  the  arrangements  made  for  their  stay. 
But,  at  the  market-square,  the  group  suddenly 
separated,  and  in  a  moment,  governor,  council, 
and  chaplain  had  disappeared,  and  the  square 
was  empty.  The  sun  had  set,  and  as  the  houses 
were  already  shrouded  in  gloom,  the  strangers 
could  not  tell  what  turn  to  take,  but  watched 
and  waited  under  the  silent  stars — the  first 
Protestant  missionaries  that  ever  stood  on  Indian 
soil,  wondering  much  what  would  happen  next, 
and  bethinking  themselves  that  even  the  Son  of 
Man  had  not  where  to  lay  His  head. 

Now  that  Ziegenbalg  has  set  foot  in  India,  Ziegenbalg' 
and  stands  bewildered  under  the  stars,  we  ^"'"• 
may  look  at  the  condition  of  that  tremendous 
problem  which  he  has  set  himself  to  solve, 
exactly  the  same  problem,  moreover,  that  we  are 
trying  to  solve  for  ourselves  to-day.  For,  when 
we  use  this  phrase,  "  winning  India,"  it  is  in  a 
prophetic,  and,  as  yet,  in  no  way  historical  sense. 
It  is  the  heading  of  a  long  chapter  of  which  only 
the  opening  pages  have  yet  been  written,  but  of 


64      THE   TRUE   CO^XEPTIOX   OF   THE   MISSION. 

which  we  have  no  more  doubt  that  it  will  be 
completed,  than  that  it  has  been  begun.  It  is 
rather  the  work  before  the  Church,  than  any  work 
the  Church  has  done.  And  if  we  may  take  such 
facts  as  numbers  and  area  and  influence,  we  are 
still  far  off  from  any  point  when  we  can  speak  of 
India  as  won  for  Christ.  But  the  winning  of  it 
was  Ziegenbalg's  aim,  the  dream  he  had  as  he 
left  home,  the  dream  of  all  that  have  followed 
him,  from  Schwartz  and  Carey  down  to  the  noble 
man  who  founded  this  lecture.  We  are  to  look 
at  something  larger  than  the  gathering  of  a  few 
natives,  whether  they  are  hundreds  or  thousands, 
out  of  indescribable  error  and  woe.  No  doubt, 
since  the  work  of  the  rescue  of  the  individual 
draws  its  impulse  from  the  pricelessness  of  a 
human  soul,  it  must  always  be  eminent  and 
inspiring,  and  is  the  basis  on  which  all  wider 
aims  must  rest.  But  the  greatness  of  the 
modern  mission,  as  we  apprehend  it,  is  in  this, 
that  it  has  fused  into  one,  two  ideas  that  were 
often  distinct — the  rescue  of  the  individual,  and 
the  building  up  of  a  universal  kingdom  of  God  ; 
that  it  does  not  recognise  any  limits  short  of 
those  which  Christ  assigned  to  His  Church — the 
whole  world  ;  and  that  it  aims  to  win  for  Him 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION.      65 

the  busy  life  of  vast  peoples,  their  existence  as 
nations  or  races,  their  polity,  their  literature  and 
commerce,  and  all  the  springs  of  national  being ; 
to  change  in  fact,  and  that  everywhere,  heathen- 
dom into  Christendom.  It  is  this  conviction, 
that  they  have  engaged  in  a  superb  and  far- 
reaching  enterprise,  which  lends  a  pathetic 
interest  to  the  figures  of  those  two  men,  as  we 
see  rising  up  beyond  them,  the  unbroken  heights 
and  fortress  of  the  Hindu  faith,  which  lends 
that  pathos  to  every  lonely  figure  that  passes  out 
of  our  sight  to-day  into  any  mission-field.  The 
work  seems  so  far  beyond  the  workers,  that  the 
faith  which  lies  behind  it  rises  into  the  highest 
chivalry. 

Well — as  Ziegenbalg  stood  under  the  shadow 
of  this  vast  religious  life,  he  would  find  that  the 
India  where  he  landed  was  divided  into  terri- 
tories as  distinct  from  one  another  in  language, 
and  in  much  else,  as  the  States  of  Europe,  but 
bound  together  by  common  religious  ideas  and 
a  common  worship,  a  religious  thought  that  so 
penetrated  the  daily  and  commonest  acts  of  the 
people,  that  they  were  practically  one. 

He  would  find  a  religion  that  was  apparently  Indian 

religions 

nothing   but   the  worship   of  false  and  foolish  facing 

F  Ziegenbalg. 


66      THE   TRUE  CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION. 

gods  ;  a  land  that  was  covered  with  temples  and 
crowded  with  priests  ;  where  almost  everything 
was  worshipped,  and  where  the  commonest 
prayers  had  often  lost  their  meaning  to  the 
worshipper ;  where  idolatry  was  practised  as  a 
systematic  cult,  guided  by  its  sacred  books,  its 
clergy,  and,  as  one  might  say,  its  prophets  or 
gurus,  and  where  all  the  grossness  of  idolatry 
might  be  seen  every  day,  precisely  as  St.  Paul 
described  it  to  the  Romans  from  experience  of 
his  own. 
Caste.  He  would  find  himself  confronted  with  Caste  ; 

w^ith  the  most  complete  denial  that  has  yet 
been  framed  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  ;  with 
an  apotheosis  of  human  pride  and  selfishness, 
wrought  out  into  marvellous  detail,  and  sustained 
by  countless  penalties,  some  of  them  worse  than 
death. 

I  shall  pass  by  all  the  details  of  this  picture, 
for  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  them  again. 

It  is  the  later,  actual,  and  present  forms  of 
these  religions  of  the  world  with  which  w^e  are 
concerned, — the  practical  side  which  they  present 
to  the  Church  upon  her  mission.  It  is  to  that 
the  Gospel  is  sent,  and  over  that  the  Gospel 
must  triumph.     It  is  to  be  the  remedy  for  the 


THE  TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      6^ 

degradation  which  idolatry  produced,  the  de- 
liverance from  its  hopelessness,  its  sensuality, 
and  its  curse. 

But  he  would  find  that  this  religion  had  purer  The  primitive 
and    nobler   forms,   that   it   was    full    of   noble  ^^^^^^^ 
thoughts,  almost  on  the  threshold  of  Christianity 
itself,  and  that  these  forms  often  existed  side  by 
side  with  all  that  filled  him  with  horror. 

He  would  find  that  when  the  fair-skinned 
Aryans  crowded  the  passes  of  the  Himalaya, 
chanting  their  Vedic  Hymns,  they  acknowledged 
but  one  deity,  the  Supreme  Spirit.  He  was  the 
Lord  of  the  universe,  and  the  universe  was  His 
work. 

He  would  find  that  they  brought  with  them 
neither  idol  nor  caste,  and  scarcely  one  feature 
of  that  religious  life  that  is  stamped  upon  India 
to-day. 

He  would  find  that,  as  the  Aryan  settlers 
advanced  into  the  country,  they  found  a  primi- 
tive, dark-skinned  race  already  in  possession ; 
some  retreating  slowly  into  the  same  hills  and 
jungles  where  their  descendants  live  to-day, 
others  remaining  to  be  absorbed  into  the  new 
population,  and  to  carry  into  it  such  ancient 
worship  as  they  practised,  low  enough  in  type, 


6S      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION. 

although  with  strange  hopes  and  flashes  of  con- 
science struggling  through  its  fetish  grossness. 
Contact  with  the  lower  and  idolatrous  races 
could  not  fail  to  produce  some  change,  and  was 
the  first,  although  by  no  means  the  most  power- 
ful, in  a  long  series  of  influences  that  were  always 
modifying  the  original  conceptions  of  the  race. 
Even  without  contact,  there  must  have  been 
change.  Religious  thought  does  not  stand  still, 
and  when  there  is  no  revelation  to  fix  the  type, 
the  tendency  to  change  is  unchecked.  As  the 
people  multiplied,  and  their  traditions  grew  older, 
and  perhaps  less  distinct,  it  became  necessary 
to  reduce  their  scattered  institutions  and  prac- 
tices, their  hymns  and  prayers,  into  a  compact 
and  binding  form.  The  Vedas,  which  were  the 
result,  are  apparently  the  work  of  many  hands, 
and  prolonged  through  a  considerable  period;  but, 
whatever  may  be  their  origin,  they  are  the  first 
authoritative  declaration  of  a  Hindu  creed, — and 
here  again  we  find  many  pure  and  noble  forms. 
The  Deities  He  would    find   that  while  there   were   then 

names  of  more  gods  than  one,  they  had  been  at 
first  no  more  than  personified  attributes  of  the 
Supreme  Being,  "a  remembrance  of  one  god 
breaking  through  the  mists  of  idolatrous  phrase- 


in  ihe  Vedas. 


THE    TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      69 

olog}'."  For,  one  of  tJiese  ancient  verses  runs, 
"That  which  is  one  the  w-ise  call  many  \\*ays. 
They  call  it  Indra,  Mitra,  Vanina,  Agni,  and  there 
is  that  heavenly  beautiful-w-inged  Garutmat ;  " 
and  another,  "  Each  god  is  to  the  mind  of  the 
suppliant  as  good  as  all  the  gods."  The  songs 
of  praise  recall  the  ver\^  roll  and  music  of  our 
Psalms — "  The  heavens  and  earth  bow  down  to 
Indra,  He  looses  the  waters  with  His  thunder- 
bolt. The  mountains  are  afraid  at  His  might. 
He  upholds  the  sky  with  its  lamps  of  gold,  He 
spread  the  green  earth." 

A  song  to  the  wakening  light  runs  :  ''  Who  is 
the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  sacrifice  ?  He 
who  governs  man  and  beast,  through  whom  the 
sky  is  bright,  and  the  earth  is  firm,  who  created 
the  bright  and  mighty  waters,  whose  shadow  is 
death,  yea,  and  immortality."  Varuna  (the 
ovpav6<;  of  the  Greek)  is  said  to  have  "  appointed 
the  broad  paths  of  the  sun,  stretched  the  starry 
sky  apart,  and  made  great  channels  for  the 
days."  To  Varuna  "  the  darkness  shineth  as 
the  day,"  and  God  searches  the  heart : 

''  The  mighty  Lord  on  high,  our  deeds,  as  if  at  hand,  espies, 
The  gods  know  all    men  do.  though  men  would    fain 
their  deeds  disguise  : 


70      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION. 

Whoever  stands,  whoever  moves,  or  steals  from  place 
to  place, 

Or  hides  him  in  his  secret  cell — the  gods  his  move- 
ments trace." 

The  gods,  therefore,  knew  man  in  their  hearts, 
and  here  there  rises  the  thought-seed,  rude 
enough,  no  doubt,  and  far  enough  removed  from 
those  deep  truths  that  have  grown  up  about  it 
among  ourselves.  There  is  the  cry  for  sin  to  be 
removed,  for  the  breaking  of  the  bonds  of  evil 
habits ;  the  cry  for  mercy,  "  Have  mercy. 
Almighty,  have  mercy ; "  the  cry  for  forgive- 
ness, "  Absolve  us  from  the  sins  of  our  fathers, 
and  from  those  which  we  have  committed  with 
our  own  bodies."  There  is  the  longing  for 
communion  that  recalls  the  melody  of  the 
familiar  words,  "  Like  as  the  hart  panteth  after 
the  water-brooks,"  when  we  read,  "Oh,  Agni, 
thou  art  like  a  trough  in  the  desert,  to  me  who 
thirst  for  thee." 
LawsofManu.  The  laws  of  Manu  are  certainly  later,  they 
belong  to  the  period  when  Brahmanism  was  at 
its  strongest  and  best.  They  succeed  the 
growth  of  caste,  and  represent  an  age  not  so 
remote  from  our  own.  Yet  in  these  twelve 
books  of  metrical  sentences,  there  are  still  signs 


THE   TRUE  CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      7 1 

of  a  nobler  and  purer  life.  "  Only  when  the 
heart  loathes  sin,"  it  is  said,  "  shall  the  taint  pass 
away."  The  old  Psalm  is  recalled  in  "  The 
wicked  have  said  in  their  hearts,  none  sees  them. 
The  gods  see  them,  and  the  spirit  within  them." 
In  spite  of  the  growth  of  idolatrous  ritual,  life  is 
still  regarded  as  higher  than  dogma.  "  He  who 
governs  his  passions  is  more  to  be  honoured 
than  he  who  knows  the  three  Vedas,  yet 
governs  them  not ; "  and  the  solidarity  of  evil  is 
put  into  precept — "  Whosoever  sins  with  one 
member,  the  sin  destroys  his  virtue ;  and  a 
single  hole  will  let  out  all  the  water  in  a  flask." 

He  would  find  that  the  rules  for  conduct  are 
quite  as  lofty.  The  father  had  absolute  power 
over  his  house,  but  "  is  to  regard  his  wife  and 
son  as  his  own  body,  his  daughter  with  all 
tenderness."  Children  are  to  honour  their  father 
and  love  their  mother.  The  care  of  the  poor 
and  sick  is  the  test  that  the  gods  apply  to  a  holy 
life.  The  description  of  the  warrior  might  be 
placed  beside  the  ideal  picture  of  a  knight  of  the 
Round  Table.  Injustice  is  not  to  be  done  in 
deed  nor  thought,  nor  a  w^ord  to  be  uttered  that 
shall  cause  a  fellow-creature  pain. 

Even  caste  is  not  engraved  so  deep  but  that 


J2      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE    >nSSION. 

a   believer  may   receive   pure   knowledge   even 
from  a  Sudra. 

He  would  find  that  the  earlier  writings  allow 
the  woman  free  choice  of  a  husband ;  they 
represent  the  only  screen  for  her  to  be,  not  the 
zenana,  but  her  virtue  ;  they  are  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  legend  of  Buddha's  wife,  who 
said,  in  apology  for  appearing  unveiled,  "Good 
women  need  veiling  no  more  than  the  sun  and 
moon."  There  are  hymns  by  women  in  the  Rig 
Veda.  The  seven  Malabar  sages  were  mostly 
of  the  female  sex.  There  were  priestesses  who 
taught  the  princes  learning  ;  and  in  the  Hindu 
Epics,  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  domestic 
manners  are  painted  almost  as  we  would  paint 
our  own. 
Brahmanism  He  would  find  also  that  this  powerful,  uni- 
versal, and  apparently  immovable  religion  had 
been  undergoing  ceaseless  change,  that  there 
was  not  an  influence  that  had  passed  over  the 
people  in  their  earlier  stages  but  had  left  its  mark. 
He  would  find  that,  when  its  better  spirits 
had  felt  it  was  changed,  and  that  it  was  losing 
its  power  as  a  religion  over  the  life  of  men. 
Buddhism  had  swept  across  it, — born  in  its  own 
home,  as  the  Reformation  of  Europe  was  born 


modified. 


THE  TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      73 

in  the  Church  of  Rome ;  and  that  before 
Buddhism  had  passed  away  to  other  races  less 
contemplative,  and  with  a  less  ideal  philosophy 
of  life,  it  had  modified  Brahmanism  once  more. 
He  would  find  that  Greek  philosophy  had  left 
a  mark ;  the  Mohammedan  conquerors  a  far 
deeper.  He  would  find  that  Hinduism  had 
been  altered  by  its  own  thinkers,  so  that  the 
later  forms  of  it  were  entirely  different  from  the 
older ;  that  the  gods  of  its  mythology  had 
changed,  so  that  there  were  some  whose  names 
had  perished,  and  others  surviving  in  names  that 
had  no  meaning,  and  some  whose  temples  had 
once  overspread  India,  that  were  scarcely  wor- 
shipped and  scarcely  noticed. 

He  would  carry  with  him  a  feeling  of  hope. 
If  the  worship  of  Brahma  was  ceasing,  if  change 
was  everywhere,  why  should  not  the  religion  of 
Christ  produce  the  greatest  change  of  all  ? 

He  would  find  again  that,  where  the  darker  Old  Indian 
and  primitive  race  had  retreated,  there,  in  the  ^^'^^^' 
same  hills  and  jungles,  they  remained  ;  savage, 
aboriginal  races,  often  timid  and  weak,  some- 
times cruel,  numbering  now  nearly  twenty 
millions,  Santhals  and  Bheels,  Kols  and  Khonds, 
and  many  more,  worshipping  not  only  a  snake 


74      THE  TRUE  CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION. 

or  a  leopard,  a  stone  or  the  stump  of  a  tree ; 
but,  for  the  most  part,  the  devil,  and  often  offer- 
ing, where  they  can,  a  human  sacrifice.  So  far 
as  they  are  distinct  from  the  Hindus  round 
them,  they  are  scattered  in  small  tribes  over  the 
vast  area  of  the  country,  and  exercise  little 
influence,  and  scarcely  affect  the  strong  caste- 
bound  religion  that  everywhere  prevails.  So  far 
as  they  were  absorbed  into  the  immigrant  popula- 
tion, they  could  not  fail  to  produce  some  change. 
India  makes  And  then  he  would  slowly  learn  that  besides 
religions  inert,  ^j^^^^  ^j^^^.^  ^^^^^  Others  Still.    Brahmanism  is  not 

an  eager  proselytising  religion.  It  is  deficient  in 
every  distinguishing  quality  of  a  religion  that 
would  push  forward  to  be  universal.  Passively 
tolerant  of  others,  so  long  as  they  do  not  break 
off  from  it,  it  has  allowed  them  their  worship 
and  their  place  beside  itself  Even  Moham- 
medans were  touched  by  this  atmosphere  of 
India,  and  a  sovereign  like  Akbar  was  as  liberal 
as  he  was  powerful,  in  fact,  a  churchman  of  the 
broadest  type,  receiving  lessons  from  Christian 
teachers,  and  bidding  them  God-speed,  while  he 
repeated  the  formula  that  made  his  sect  a  very 
sword  of  the  Lord,  and  varied  his  submission  to 
the  Divine  will  by  demanding  Divine  honours 


THE   TRUE  CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION.      75 

to  himself.  So  the  Parsees  sheltered  themselves 
in  the  north-west,  appointed  their  high-priests 
and  Levites,  and  built  their  towers  of  silence. 
The  Thomas  Christians  maintained  themselves 
along  the  coast  of  Malabar ;  and  Armenian 
Christians  settled  where  they  would,  thriving  as 
merchants  and  bankers,  and  also,  Mr.  Ludlow 
thinks,  as  Russian  spies.  The  independence  of 
the  various  states  contributed  to  this  rare 
immunity,  and  along  the  broad  lines  of  tolera- 
tion, Christianity  could  scarcely  have  shown  a 
fairer  spectacle.  None,  however,  of  these 
fractions  affected  the  life  or  opinions  of  the  vast 
multitude  who  represented  the  ruling  faith. 
Hinduism  stood  out  bold,  massive,  vast ;  and 
the  question  between  India  and  Christianity  was 
practically  between  Hinduism  and  Christianity. 
Had  Hinduism  the  power  to  resist  the  simple 
unpretending  assault  of  a  few  pious  men  ?  That 
was  then  the  question  at  issue.  It  is  scarcely  a 
question  at  issue  to-day. 

I  have  spoken  as  if,  in  Ziegenbalg,  Christ- 
ianity and  Hinduism  had  first  come  in  contact. 
It  was  the  only  contact  that  was  to  be  durable, 
but  it  was  not  the  first.  There  is  a  spell  in 
that  word  India  that  has  always  been  drawing 


y6     THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF    THE   MISSION. 

the  West  towards  the  East.  There  were  ancient 
routes  of  commerce  that  led  to  it  over  Syria 
and  Persia.  Alexandria  spread  out  her  white 
wings  until  the  snowy  sails  entered  Indian 
waters;  and,  where  men  adventured  in  the  hope 
of  gain,  men  were  also  ready  to  adventure  in 
Thomas  the   Gospel.      We   need   not  accept   the   legend 

that  Thomas  the  Apostle  founded  the  Churches 
on  the  coast  of  Malabar,  since  all  probability  is 
against  his  having  reached  that  distant  point  of 
India.  Nor  are  we  bound  to  believe  that  it  was 
not  St.  Thomas,  but  the  Ethiopian  Eunuch  ;  nor 
need  we  build  much  upon  the  title  of  the  Bishop 
at  the  Council  of  Nice,  who  was  called  Metro- 
politan of  Persia  and  of  the  great  India,  for  a 
word  so  lax  and  broad  as  the  "  India "  of  that 
period  could  scarce  be  found.  Nor  is  there 
more  foundation  for  the  report,  long  after  date, 
that  Pantaenus,  leaving  his  crabbed  philosophy 
and  the  Christian  schools  where  he  was  training 
up  fathers  of  the  Church,  shipped  himself  for 
missionary  work,  to  return,  sweetened  and 
chastened  in  spirit,  and  take  up  his  old  work 
again,  dropping,  no  doubt,  many  a  quiet  seed- 
word  that  would  spring  up  in  some  younger 
missionary  ardour.     And,  since  the  Indian  part 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION.      JJ 

of  that  story  is  not  above  suspicion,  we  may  fall 
back  upon  Frumentius,  who  preached  the  Gospel 
there  1500  years  ago,  and  having  returned  to 
Alexandria,  was  made  a  bishop,  and  tore  himself 
from  the  manifold  attractions  of  that  famous 
city — greater  to  none  than  to  the  Christian 
scholar — to  go  back  to  India,  where  he  died. 
Whoever  may  have  brought  the  seed — over  land 
or  over  sea — we  are  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
a  Christian  community  spread  along  the  south- 
west, and  was  described  by  travellers  as  we 
might  describe  it  now.  Those,  indeed,  were  its 
better  days ;  nor  is  there  evidence  that  it  has  ever 
spread  beyond  the  limits  where  we  find  it — a 
curious  survival  and  little  more.  For  this  Syro- 
Christian  or  Thomas-Christian  Church  of  300,000 
people,  seems  to  have  been  just  able  to  live, 
vital  enough  to  resist  at  bitter  cost  much  enmity 
of  the  rapacious  Jesuits,  who  could  not  bear  a 
Christian  speck  in  heathen  countries  if  it  was 
not  marked  with  Roman  letters  ;  vital  enough  to 
cling  to  its  worship  and  its  popular  forms,  but 
even  then,  in  great  decay  of  faith,  overrun  with 
superstitions,  and  content  with  a  careless  ignor- 
ance among  its  clergy,  and  a  semi-heathen  life 
among  its  people.      It  had    never  (within   our 


78      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION. 

historic  period)  been  missionary  or  aggressive, 
and,  like  all  Churches  that  are  thus  centred,  it 
reaped  as  it  sowed.  Yet  I  confess  to  a  strange 
thrill,  when,  sailing  slowly  up  that  coast,  the 
simple  white-washed  churches  came  often  into 
view  among  the  palms  and  dark  green  woods 
that  lined  the  shore ;  or,  when  landing  and 
entering  their  primitive  structures,  we  saw  those 
simple  Christian  interiors  where  the  population 
is  densely  heathen  all  about,  structures  and 
people  carried  our  thoughts  away  back  to  an  old 
and  vanished  Christian  world  ;  back  so  far  that 
the  names  of  the  time  are  Augustine,  and 
Origen,  and  Cyprian,  and  the  talk  is  of  the 
Council  of  Nice,  or  perhaps  the  persecutions  of 
Rome,  or  of  some  old  enough  to  have  seen  the 
Apostles  of  the  Lord. 
Goa.  And   then,  higher  up  the  same  coast,  there  is 

Goa,  which  the  Portuguese  made  a  brilliant 
centre  in  its  day,  from  which  the  whole  mission- 
ary power  of  the  Church  of  Rome  went  out  for 
centuries ;  from  which  Xavier  sailed  on  eager 
embassies,  and  Robert  de  Nobili,  and  Juan  de 
Brito,  and  a  crowd  of  men,  filled  with  devotion 
and  contempt  of  pain.  Never  a  ship  arrived 
from   Europe   but   some  were  ready  to  go   on 


THE    TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE    MISSION.      79 

board  and  nurse  the  sick.  When  the  poor  help- 
less slaves  were  turned  out  of  their  masters' 
houses  to  die  upon  the  street,  they  carried  them 
to  hospital  and  nursed  them  there,  and,  when 
they  recovered,  presented  them  with  freedom. 
When  the  plague  broke  out,  they  gathered  the 
stricken  round  them,  "Christian  and  heathen, 
Jew  and  Mohammedan,  and  tended  them  with- 
out distinction  and  at  the  peril  of  their  lives. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  nothing  came  of  all  this 
magnificent  devotion,  for  there  were  districts 
where  the  Christians  came  to  be  counted  by 
30,000,  80,000,  and  100,000,  and  the  last  census 
shows  half  as  many  more  Roman  Catholic  Christ- 
ians in  India  as  there  are  Protestant.  And  yet, 
next  to  nothing  came  of  it ;  for  these  men  were 
so  little  different  from  heathen  when  they  were 
baptised,  and  received  so  little  teaching  after- 
wards, and  the  methods  taken  to  reach  them 
were  sometimes  so  radically  wrong,  so  often 
based  on  the  principle  that  the  end  justified  any 
means,  that  the  high  figures  count  for  little, 
except  to  warn  others  that  this  reduction  of 
spiritual  work  into  statistics  is  a  dangerous 
process.  For  all  real  struggle  with  heathenism 
we   must   turn    elsewhere.     Paralysis  of  inertia 


So      THE  TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION. 

has  reduced  the  Syrian  Christians  to  a  cipher 
as  regards  any  influence  they  may  have  on 
the  future  of  India.  Paralysis  of  error  has 
reduced  the  experiment  wrought  out  from  Goa 
almost  as  low. 

Christianity  had  also  been  approaching  from 
another  direction.  Commerce  has  always  been 
the  bond  between  Europe  and  India :  sure  and 
deliberate,  like  that  which  the  lazy  Greeks  of 
Alexandria  allowed  to  fall  out  of  their  hands 
into  those  of  the  Saracens,  until  the  Italian 
galleys  contended  with  the  Moors  for  the  prize 
of  those  Eastern  waters  ;  and  then,  with  the  rush 
of  discovery  and  the  confusion  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  there  followed  those  trading  settlements 
or  factories,  out  of  certain  of  which  there  has 
grown  our  own  possession  of  that  brilliant 
empire. 

The  Portuguese  were  first,  and  for  nearly  a 
century  they  retained  an  undisturbed  possession, 
and  that  sovereignty  of  the  East  with  which  the 
Pope  had  invested  them.  But,  with  the  seven- 
teenth century,  there  poured  in  the  Dutch  and 
the  English,  the  Danes  and  the  French  :  and 
these  commercial  colonies  became  a  factor  in 
the  future  of  that  country  that  it  is  impossible 


THE   TRUE  CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      8 1 

to  overlook.  It  is  only,  however,  as  a  Christian 
factor  that  I  am  concerned  with  it  this  evening, 
just  as  it  may  or  may  not  bring  us  nearer  to  the 
spiritual  conquest  of  India. 

That  there  was  a  religious  feeling  entering  The  Trading 
into  the  formation  of  those  trading  companies  Co^^P^'^^^^- 
is  beyond  a  doubt.  It  is  expressed  in  their 
charters,  and  sometimes  in  their  acts.  There 
was  an  awakened  spirit  abroad,  and  honest, 
thoughtful  men  saw  the  finger  of  God  opening 
new  worlds  and  possibilities  that  were  like  wild 
dreams,  and  they  stood  devoutly  before  Him  to 
acknowledge  it.  But,  whether  the  company 
was  Roman  Catholic  or  Protestant,  the  outcome 
of  it  was  soon  almost  the  same,  and  Lafiteau's 
stinging  sentence  on  one  may  be  accepted  for 
the  rest  :  "  The  greatest  obstacle  presented  to 
the  acceptance  of  the  Gospel  is  the  frightful 
contrast  to  its  spirit  in  the  example  and  conduct 
of  the  Portuguese." 

The  Dutch  settled  at  Surat,  upon  the  west, 
where  they  entrenched  themselves  in  a  fort, 
lived  far  too  luxuriously,  maintained  a  state  like 
princes,  and,  as  they  died,  left  their  successors 
to  build  pompous  tombs  that  are  now  almost 
the   only  sign    of  those   old    splendours.      The 


82      THE   TRUE  CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION. 

English  followed,  moving  tardily  in  this  direc- 
tion, although  the  bait  was  great ;  and  finding 
the  taking  up  of  ;^30,ooo  in  shares  a  more 
serious  matter  than  the  taking  up  of  thirty 
millions  would  be  to-day  ;  but  gradually  estab- 
lishing themselves  after  the  Dutch  fashion,  both 
in  the  west  and  east  The  Danes  settled  at 
Tranquebar,  an  open  roadway  about  midway 
between  Cape  Comorin  and  Madras ;  the 
French,  at  Pondicherry,  on  the  Coromandel 
Coast. 

The  pictures  of  that  old  life  are  vivid  enough. 
Records  of  the  companies,  letters  home,  reports 
of  travellers,  are  all  graphic  and  full  of 
detail.  We  see  the  splendours  of  the  native 
courts — and  about  the  time  these  companies 
were  formed,  the  splendours  were  at  their 
height — with  the  eyes  of  curious  foreigners, 
and  we  learn,  in  consequence,  a  less  distrust  of 
what  would  have  seemed  the  sheer  extrava- 
gance of  Oriental  historians.  We  have  painful 
accounts  of  the  people  and  then*  customs,  and 
we  can  trace  the  growth  and  strengthening  of 
Brahmanical  ideas.  But  as  for  any  light  thrown 
by  these  traders  on  the  problem  of  a  Christian 
India,  there  is  none.     If  they  are  Dutch,  they 


THE   TRUE  CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION.      83 

maintain  Divine  worship  twice  a-day,  and  three 
times  on  the  Sunday.  If  they  are  English,  the 
heads  of  the  establishment  play  cards  on  the 
Sabbath,  or  go  out  horse-racing,  while  those 
may  attend  the  chaplain  who  will.  But 
whether  Dutch,  English,  or  Danes,  they  care 
little  for  spiritual  instruction  for  themselves,  and 
nothing  for  the  heathenism  of  the  people. 

These  settlements  from  Christian  countries 
had  no  direct  influence  on  the  Christianising 
of  India,  unless  it  were  an  influence  for  evil. 
They  were  long  a  scandal  and  stumbling-block 
in  the  way  of  missionary  effort. 

So  all  that  had  yet  come  of  Christianity  in  The  conflict 
India,  up  to  the  verge  of  the  eighteenth  century,  ^"  ^"^^^' 
was  a  little  colour  here  and  there  upon  the  map  ; 
colour  mixed  and  dull  and  thinly  sprinkled,  visi- 
ble on  the  map,  and  one  may  almost  say  nowhere 
else.  And  thus,  I  think,  it  is  with  reason  that 
we  watch  this  new  approach  with  an  interest 
that  as  yet  has  belonged  to  no  other,  for  it  is 
the  coming  of  a  man  with  a  pure  creed,  and 
with  a  heart  on  fire,  and  a  living  faith,  that 
if  the  Word  of  God  is  planted,  it  must  grow, 
and  that  where  it  grows  heathenism  must 
decay  before  it — the  heathenism  of  India,  like 


84      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION. 

every  other,  and  that  he,  single-handed  or  not, 
will  plant  it  there,  God  giving  him  grace ;  the 
foremost  in  time  of  a  long  line  of  men  who 
will  follow  with  the  same  convictions,  doing 
valiantly  but  silently  the  same  work,  placing 
one  after  the  other,  Christ  and  the  living  temple 
of  Christendom  beside  those  idol  fanes  and  the 
beliefs  even  of  millenniums,  and  persuaded  that 
there,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  the  power  of  that 
uplifted  and  sovereign  Christ  to  draw  all  men 
unto  Him.  Such  faith  as  that  must  lie  evermore 
at  the  root  of  such  conquest  as  we  are  now  to 
see  resumed.  We  recognise  that  it  is  not  here 
a  solitary  figure  and  another  there,  arrayed 
against  this  solid  and  as  yet  impregnable  Hindu- 
ism, but  the  first  soldiers  of  an  army  that  is 
being  summoned  from  every  century  by  its  great 
Captain  ;  that  it  is  not  even  the  armyy  although 
we  see  it  in  the  missionary  breadth  of  our  own 
day,  but  that  it  is  the  going  out  of  Christianity 
leading  and  commanding  these  blessed  messen- 
gers whom  He  has  anointed.  And  once  we 
grasp  this,  which  lies  underneath  any  right  con- 
ception of  the  mission,  the  sense  of  disproportion 
vanishes,  or  rather  it  completely  shifts.  When 
Christ  Himself,  the  living  Word,  the  truth,  the 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      85 

light  of  men,  comes  into  the  conflict ;  Christ,  in 
whom  any  dim  hopes  and  dull  but  right  yearn- 
ings that  the  heathen  express  in  their  religions 
are  fulfilled  ;  Christ,  of  whom  every  form  of 
Pagan  worship  testifies  that  He  is  in  some  way 
the  Desired  of  all  nations ;  Christ,  who  alone  can 
see  some  fragments  of  His  image  among  the 
perverse  wreck  that  false  and  base  idolatries 
have  made  of  great  races  of  mankind,  and  cer- 
tainly who  alone  can  restore  to  man  that  which 
his  following  of  idols  has  taken  from  him  ; 
Christ,  who  was  crowned  where  He  suffered, 
King  of  all  the  world,  and  who,  in  every  triumph 
of  the  mission,  is  only  the  King  coming  slowly 
to  His  own.  When  He  comes  in  the  splendour  The  personal 
of  His  Gospel,  and  confronts  the  supplanting  Christ. 
thoughts  that  have  withdrawn  the  love  [and 
reverence  of  men  from  God,  the  superstitions, 
gross  beyond  words,  that  have  held  men  in 
debasing  bondage ;  Christ,  at  whose  coming 
Pentecost  again  breaks  out,  and  winds  of  the 
Spirit  rock  our  narrow  Churches,  it  is  not  Hindu- 
ism that  we  feel  towers  above  us  in  its  strength, 
but  that  He  towers  above  Hinduism,  and  that  in 
the  very  nature  of  things,  a  conflict  so  unequal 
can  end  but  in  the  one  way,  in  the  cry  that  will 


S6      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION. 

one  day  go  up  from  all  the  heathen  world — 
Salvation  unto  Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne; 
for  the  moments  when  we  feel,  as  Valegiani  felt 
when  he  saw  the  mountains  of  China,  "  Oh, 
mighty  fortress  !  when  shall  these  impenetrable, 
brazen  gates  of  thine  be  broken  through  ? " 
they  are  our  moments  of  little  faith :  "  the 
gates  of  brass  before  Him  burst,  the  iron  fetters 
yield." 

Now,  returning  to  Ziegenbalg,  we  find  him 
and  his  friend  owing  their  shelter  for  the  first 
few  days  to  the  pity  of  one  of  the  Governor's 
suite;  afterwards,  they  were  allowed  to  occupy 
a  house  upon  the  wall,  close  by  the  heathen 
quarters,  and  here  they  settled  down  to  their 
work  with  a  patience  and  trust,  a  confession  of 
their  weakness  and  shrinking,  and  a  quiet,  manly 
resolution  that  are  very  touching.  Six  days 
after  his  arrival,  we  find  Ziegenbalg  busy  acquir- 
ing the  first  rudiments  of  Tamul,  without  books, 
grammars,  dictionaries,  or  even  an  alphabet ! 
By  extraordinary  industry  he  was  able  to  speak 
the  language  intelligibly  in  eight  months.  This 
minor  success  only  whetted  his  zeal.  Locked  up 
within  the  Tamul  tongue  were  all  the  mysteries 
of    the    Tamul    religion.      The    people    had    a 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      %y 

literature,  and  he  was  prudent  enough  to  dis- 
trust the  careless  impressions  of  the  Europeans,, 
and  to  believe  that  a  knowledge  of  the  native 
literature  would  give  him  a  key  to  the  native 
mind.  All  day  long  he  was  busy  reading,  writ- 
ing, translating,  and  reciting,  in  order  to  catch 
the  pronunciation,  in  which  there  was  an  infinite 
variety  of  inflexion  and  tone.  In  1709,  he  could 
speak  in  Tamul  as  familiarly  as  in  his  native 
German,  yet  even  here  he  did  not  stop,  but  pro- 
ceeded to  draw  up  a  grammar  and  two  lexicons, 
one  of  prose,  and  the  other  of  poetry.  The 
prose  lexicon  contained  40,000  words,  the  lexicon 
of  poetry  17,000.  He  had  scarcely  been  two 
years  in  India  when  he  began  the  translation  of 
the  New  Testament.  It  was  finished  within 
three  years,  and  then,  with  characteristic  tenacity 
of  purpose,  he  took  the  opportunity  of  a  serious 
illness  which  interrupted  his  other  labours,  to 
commence  the  Old  Testament,  a  much  more  for- 
midable enterprise,  and  which  he  only  succeeded 
in  carrying  as  far  as  the  end  of  Ruth.  So  this 
"  young  priest  who  can  preach  in  Tamul  "  (for  he 
was  only  twenty-six)  had  already  become  a  great 
power  in  Southern  India,  and  was  shaking  the 
heathen  mind  by  his  incessant  "  speaking  about 


88      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION. 

the  things  of  God  ; "  but  Tamul  was  not  the  only 
tongue  he  used  for  that  Divine  speech  of  his.  The 
language  of  the  half-breeds  all  along  the  coast 
was  the  broken  Portuguese,  which  was  almost 
the  only  trace  of  ancient  Portuguese  possession. 
The  slaves  in  Tranquebar,  and  many  of  the 
natives,  spoke  it ;  and,  as  the  missionaries  had 
learned  it  on  board,  they  speedily  turned  to 
those  hapless  and  often  baptised  heathens. 
There  was  a  school  and  a  service  in  this  lan- 
guage, and,  before  any  native  embraced  Christ- 
ianity, five  of  the  slaves  had  been  received  into 
the  Church,  as  the  first  fruits  of  their  labour. 
Then,  besides  the  school  children,  there  were 
orphans,  whom  the  missionaries,  with  sometimes 
not  twopence  in  the  house  and  not  twopence 
worth  in  the  larder,  took  up  and  cared  for,  like 
the  brave,  loving,  unselfish  men  they  were. 

And  all  this  time  Ziegenbalg  was  fighting  his 
up-hill  battle  with  the  Governor,  who  was  deter- 
mined to  crush  out  the  mission  by  fair  means  or 
foul,  and  fighting  it  under  heavy  disadvantage. 
He  could  not  help  forming  plans  for  Christianis- 
ing India  that  were  daring  and  magnificent,  nor 
seeing  the  proper  moment  and  place  for  a  good 
stroke,  and  he  could  not  help  the  torturing  feeling 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION.      89 

that  he  had  no  means  to  execute  them.     For  the 
mission  was  sorely  crippled  at  home,  intrigues 
against  it  were  thickening,  not  so  much  from 
dislike  to  the  Gospel  as  from  political  feuds  ;  the 
scanty  funds  came  with  great  irregularity,  and 
friends  were  few.     Lutkens,  the   chaplain,  had 
fallen  into  disgrace  by  remonstrating  with  the 
queen  for  going  to  masquerades.      "  God    help 
us,"  he  writes,  "  for  I  dare  not  utter  the  worst 
that    I    fear."     His   salary  from   the  Academy 
ceased ;   his  salary  as  chaplain  was  not  paid  ; 
sickness  and  death  visited  his  family  and  left 
him  without  his  wife  and  eldest  daughter  ;  and 
with  a  thousand  crowns  to  pay,  he  did  not  know 
where   to   turn,   and    was   in    actual  straits  for 
money.     His  letters  were  written  with  a  tremb- 
ling hand  that  refused  to  hold  the  pen,  and  then  Lutkens' 
"  a  daily  dying  man,"  at  last  he  died,  thinking  of '^^^^^' 
the  mission  to  the  end,  grappling  with  its  diffi- 
culties, and  sending  to  the  king  dying  charges 
which    were    afterwards     to    bear    good    fruit. 
There  was  a  latent  heroism  in  the  simple  man, 
who  with  his  narrow  views,  and  small  cares,  and 
querulousness,  his  profound  sense  of  Court  favour 
and  dependence  on  the  breath  of  kings,  clung  to 
the  mission  like  a  soldier  to  his  standard,  and 


return. 


90      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE    MISSION. 

murmured  out  his  last  words  of  faith  and  hope 
beneath  its  folds. 
Ziegenbaig's  Ziegenbalg  sped  home.  In  the  summer  of 
17 1 5,  the  eyes  of  Europe  were  fixed  upon 
Stralsund.  There,  pent  in  by  the  forces  of  four 
powers,  Charles  XI I.  defied  the  world.  The 
Kings  of  Denmark  and  Prussia  were  in  the 
camp,  for  the  struggle  demanded  every  sacrifice. 
One  evening,  a  stranger  of  note  had  an  audience 
of  the  kings,  who  had  shown  him  singular  favour, 
and  for  hours,  it  was  said,  they  had  been  closeted 
together.  The  soldiers  who  had  gathered  round 
may  have  been  disappointed  when  they  saw  that 
he  was  only  a  clergyman,  a  man  indeed  of  com- 
manding presence,  of  a  wonderful  dignity  and 
fire,  resolute  and  calm,  with  a  keen  eye,  a  bronzed 
and  almost  swarthy  face,  seamed  with  deep  lines 
of  care,  and  a  winning  courtesy  and  lovableness 
of  manner ;  but  when  he  opened  his  lips  and 
preached  to  them,  and  they  heard  it  was  young 
Mr.  Ziegenbalg,  the  missionary  from  Tranquebar, 
there  were  some  at  least  who  ceased  to  wonder  at 
his  welcome.  He  seemed  to  have  dropped  out  of 
the  clouds,  the  mission  had  no  time  to  spare,  but 
he  got  his  story  told  to  the  king  and  he  was  con- 
tent ;  for  details  he  was  referred  to  Copenhagen. 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      9 1 

Thither  he  journeyed  with  restless  haste,  and  , 
then  into  Germany,  to  Francke  and  Halle,  halt- 
ing little  at  any  place,  but  preaching  to  vast 
crowds  who  filled  the  churches  and  swayed  out 
into  the  street,  "very  weak"  we  are  told,  yet 
kindling  by  his  presence  the  zeal  of  all  the 
mission  friends,  and  moving  his  audiences  as  he 
would  by  his  glowing  appeals. 

Accompanied  by  his  newly  married  wife,  he  in  London. 
hurried  through  Holland,  and  embarked  for 
London  in  the  dead  of  winter,  where,  from  the 
king  down,  his  company  was  eagerly  sought, 
further  help  was  guaranteed,  he  received  a  free 
passage  from  the  East  India  Company  ;  and, 
still  hurrying  as  if  he  had  a  presentiment  that 
the  time  was  short,  stayed  not,  till,  after  a  quick 
voyage  of  five  months,  he  reached  Tranquebar  to 
find  the  hostile  Governor  recalled,  and  a  friend 
of  missions  appointed  in  his  place. 

For  two  years  more  he  threw  himself  into 
every  labour,  but  with  an  instinct  that  the  hand 
of  death  was  upon  him.  He  preached  at  Christ- 
mastide,  1718;  on  New  Year's  Day  his  voice 
was  so  weak  that  he  was  scarcely  heard,  and  he 
never  spoke  in  public  again.  On  the  last  Sun-  His  death. 
day  he  summoned  the  native  congregation  to 


02      THE    7?.rE   COXCEFTTOX   OF  THE   iOSSION. 

his  beds: ie.  z::d  ex--:::;i   :.  i"  fist 

aUC  !rT.rnoTa.r'a.c.  r  i;:::  rdzru^^"  .ic  T*"as 

—  -'^    -heernil    i.--.  ■      ^-i    h^~    ~ -"ing 

:    .    -       "-th  his  wife-  .  _  :.:'".e:    "...  f  of 

death  set  in.  ''Did  he  desire  ::  :  : 
with  Christ  P'^  "Ah  "  ■  --i:iing.y:  i:.  re- 
sentences followed.  -  :^:  scarcely  spe^^^.  .  .  . 
may  God  bless  what  I  have  spoken,  ...  I  have 
daily  given  myself  into  Thy  hsriis.  O  God !  .  .  . 
The  Lord  saiiK  '  Father,  I  wiL  that  where  I  am. 
there  also  shall  My  servant  be' "'  A  great  peace 
rested  oa  his  coantenance,  a  ier.se  z:  res:  acii 
triumph,  in  spite  of  his  pair.  Scdienly  he  put 
his  hands  to  his  eyes,  *■  How  is  it  so  bright," 
he  cried-  *as  if  the  sun  shone  into  my  face?" 
Soon  after  he  asked  for  the  melody  of  the  hymn 
^  JesQs,  meine  Znversicht"'  The  chords  seemed 
to  revive  him,  ant  r  ;;  :  ".'"  lie  fell  as'eep.  r.:t 
yet  thirty-six  years  : . 

The  ^lission  Chnrchtht.:  zt  tr.t  jtis  ctmrades 
had  planted,  had  cost  them  ve.^rs  td  urtrtre- 


-  the  mission    althcugh 


not  that  Danish   r: 


ICyZ-ErTlOS  OF   THE  MISSION. 


grow. 

It  has  5 
ever\'  par: 
one  day  in 
sects  of  Ir 
its  shaft 
Church  h- 
idc: 


for  bravery,  and  wisdczi.  sT-f  l^rrt  iniirht,  a 

chief  among  thez:  i'!   ir.i  ::  t  rr    rt     ;:" 

the  cairr    :f   r:  Trhi.   ~e:r  l:   I-L3    :t;- 

raised  :    t:  I    :  ::~t-    Z  , 

conditic's  :f  zsit  .  e  see'  h:~ 


way  across 

survive    r 
Zie-er:     - 


92      THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   MISSION. 

his  bedside,  and  exhorted  them  to  be  steadfast 
and  immovable.  On  the  23rd  February  he  was 
more  cheerful  than  usual,  and  had  morning 
prayer  with  his  wife,  but  soon  after,  the  pains  of 
death  set  in.  "  Did  he  desire  to  depart  and  be 
with  Christ  ?  "  "  Ah,  how  willingly  !  "  Broken 
sentences  followed.  "  I  can  scarcely  speak,  .  .  . 
may  God  bless  what  I  have  spoken,  ...  I  have 
daily  given  myself  into  Thy  hands,  O  God  !  .  .  . 
The  Lord  saith,  '  Father,  I  will  that  where  I  am, 
there  also  shall  My  servant  be.' "  A  great  peace 
rested  on  his  countenance,  a  sense  of  rest  and 
triumph,  in  spite  of  his  pain.  Suddenly  he  put 
his  hands  to  his  eyes,  "  How  is  it  so  bright," 
he  cried,  "  as  if  the  sun  shone  into  my  face  ? " 
Soon  after  he  asked  for  the  melody  of  the  hymn 
"  Jesus,  meine  Zuversicht."  The  chords  seemed 
to  revive  him,  and  presently  he  fell  asleep,  not 
yet  thirty-six  years  old. 

The  Mission  Church  that  he  and  his  comrades 
had  planted,  had  cost  them  years  of  unappre- 
ciated labour,  it  had  been  watered  by  many 
tears,  and  beaten  by  the  keen  winds  of  trial ; 
but  the  prayers  they  had  offered  for  their  work 
were  fully  answered. 

From  that  day  till  now,  the  mission  (although 


THE   TRUE   CONCEPTION    OF   THE   MISSION.      93 

not  that  Danish  mission)  has  never  ceased  to 
grow. 

It  has  spread  with  its  leaves  of  healing,  to  Results  of 
every  part  of  the  Continent ;  and  when  we  see  it  ^^^  '^°^^- 
one  day  in  its  strength,  and  the  many  tribes  and 
sects  of  India  resting  in  peace  and  light  under 
its  shade,  when,  in  every  village,  the  Christian 
Church  has  taken  the  place  of  the  now  decaying 
idol  temple,  it  will  be  for  men  to  remember  that 
he  who  fixed  it  in  that  ancient  soil  was  not 
only  the  first  Protestant  missionary  there,  but, 
for  bravery,  and  wisdom,  and  large  insight,  a 
chief  among  them  all,  and  to  lay  one  more  upon 
the  cairn  of  grateful  memories  that  has  been 
raised  over  Bartholomew  Ziegenbalg. 

As  yet,  we  have  been  trying  to  master  the 
conditions  of  the  problem  ;  we  have  seen  how 
one  man  prepares  to  solve  it ;  but  we  have  only 
reached  a  little  way  upon  the  road,  and  must 
reserve  any  summing  up  of  the  result.  We 
shall  have  to  watch  with  sorrow,  how  that  early 
work  first  spreads  till  it  reaches  more  than  half- 
way across  Southern  India,  and  then  slowly  dis- 
appears. But  if  the  work  vanishes,  the  workers 
survive  in  our  remembrance.  In  such  men  as 
Ziegenbalg  and  his  companions,  we  see  revived 


III. 

STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING. 


H 


III. 

STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

We  have  traced  one  current  of  missionary  im-  The  slender 
pulse,  as  it  flowed  from  the  Pietism  of  BerHn  ^^'^^^^^^• 
and  Halle.  We  have  followed  its  slender  stream, 
fed  by  that  one  fountain,  with  contributory  rills 
(but  nothing  more),  supplied  by  royal  favours 
that  are  not  always  quite  to  be  relied  on,  letters 
from  kings  and  princesses,  both  Danish  and 
English,  collections  of  small  amount  from  courtly 
and  archiepiscopal  people,  and  sympathetic  but 
not  very  generous  aid  of  the  English  Societies 
for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge  and  Propa- 
gating the  Gospel.  We  have  marked  its  course 
through  Southern  India,  recognisable  by  com- 
panies of  native  Christians,  and  by  churches  and 
schools,  and  men  as  noble  and  brave  and  wise 
and  devoted  as  were  ever  given  to  any  work  ; 
until,  after  almost  a  century,  there  were  perhaps 
50,000  who  had  been  baptised.  We  have  traced 
the  stream  so  far  that  we  found  it  in  danger  of 


lOO  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

being  dried  up  and  lost,  like  waters  struggling 
through  a  waste  of  sand  !  The  converts  shrink- 
ing in  numbers  and  declining  in  piety,  the 
missionary  losing  power,  and  all  the  work  its 
freshness,  and  the  question  rises  to  our  lips : 
What  has  this  century  of  labour  effected  ?  As 
for  any  impression  on  India  or  on  Hinduism,  has 
it  not  been  like  wasteful  waves  of  the  sea,  beating 
upon  scornful  and  impregnable  rock  ?  We  have 
seen  that,  in  the  midst  of  their  decay,  new 
streams  were  rising  at  the  touch  of  this,  and  were 
to  flow  over  Tinnevelly  and  Travancore,  and  until 
the  Presidency  of  Madras  became  the  most  truly 
Christian  soil  of  India,  using  even  that  phrase 
however  with  caution,  and  remembering  that, 
even  there,  all  the  Christians  of  the  Reformed 
Faith  do  not  rise  above  200,000  out  of  a  popula- 
tion more  than  200  times  as  great,  and  are 
prevented  by  caste  from  having  any  influence 
comparable  to  their  number.  We  have  come  so 
far  that  we  see,  on  the  verge  of  this  century,  the 
beginning  of  those  immense  enterprises,  rocked 
in  the  very  heart  of  Christian  Europe  and  Chris- 
tian America,  which  aim  distinctly  at  the  over- 
throw of  Hinduism,  and  which  strive  to  plant 
the  Gospel  in  every  Hindu  community. 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  lOI 

But,  before  we  watch  the  struggle  further,  and 
are  caught  by  that  strong  tendency  it  has  to 
absorb  our  interest  and  concentrate  it  upon 
itself,  it  will  be  necessary  to  trace  another 
current  of  missionary  eagerness  flowing  from 
the  same  source,  and  to  follow  it  also  down  to 
the  point  where  the  two  streams  melt  together 
into  the  broader  flow  of  the  modern  mission. 

Struggling  but  prevailing  is  the  motto  that  is 
written  over  this  chapter :  light  breaking  out, 
feebly  and  fitfully  enough,  yet  somehow  spread- 
ing wider,  and  clearing  open  spaces  in  the  sky, 
where  God's  Word  shines  and  triumphs  in  ever- 
lasting strength. 

I  have  said  that  these  two  currents  (and  there  Missions 
are    no    other    missionary    movements    of    the  ^°!^.^    °"!^ 

spiritual  life. 

century  that  deserve  the  name)  flow  from  the 
one  source  of  a  religious  revival.  It  is  not  with- 
out interest,  nor  without  a  very  close  bearing 
upon  the  duty  of  the  Church,  that  the  revival 
of  the  mission  always  accompanies  a  revival  of 
spiritual  life.  So  soon  as  the  Church  recognises 
and  rejoices  in  communion  with  her  living  Head 
and  Saviour,  it  would  seem  that  she  makes  effort 
to  carry  out  His  will  and  to  preach  the  Gospel 
to    every   creature.     I    am    speaking  simply  of 


102  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

matters  of  history,  and  not  of  theory  ;  and  the 
way  in  which  the  new-born  mission  Hfe  betrays 
itself  is  very  striking  ;  for  there  is  no  apparent 
reasoning  out  of  duty,  but  an  instinct  or  impulse 
like  the  movement  of  a  limb  that  had  been 
paralysed  but  has  recovered  power.  It  is  as  if, 
in  their  vivid  sense  of  union  with  Christ,  the 
same  mind  as  was  in  Christ  became  the  mind  of 
His  people  ;  and  feeling  as  He  felt,  they  act  as 
He  would  act. 

Certainly  the  mission,  as  we  trace  it,  gathers 
strength  just  as  the  spiritual  life  gathers  strength, 
and  connects  itself,  as  if  of  necessity,  with  the 
revival  of  the  Church  ;  and  if  that  be  a  matter 
of  historical  fact,  it  is  plain  that  the  mission  is 
the  outcome  of  the  Church  when  the  Church  is 
at  its  best.  We  think  of  the  mission  as  among 
the  Church's  triumphs,  but  it  is  nourished  among 
the  Church's  Pentecosts. 

Long  before  the  burst  of  mission  fervour  that 
commenced  this  century,  there  was  a  certain 
Jean  de  la  Badie,  a  French  Protestant  of  noble 
family,  who  was  born  about  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  was  a  brilliant 
student  even  at  sixteen.  After  a  career  of 
curious  change, —  first  drawn  by  the  devout  lives 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  103 

of  the  Jesuits,  who  were  then  attracting  the 
piety  of  France,  afterwards  joining  the  Jansen- 
ists  because  they  were  reformed  in  doctrine ; 
instituting  such  reforms  in  his  adopted  Church, 
as  the  communion  in  both  kinds,  and  reHgious 
conferences,  where  every  one  came  with  a  Bible 
in  the  hand  ;  sent,  therefore,  by  Cardinal  Maza- 
rin  so  quickly  as  might  be  from  Amiens  in  the 
north  to  Guyenne  in  the  south,  and  on  the  way, 
falling  in  with  Calvin's  Institutes,  he  finally 
drifted  back  into  the  Church  of  his  fathers,  and 
was  received  by  the  ministers  of  Montauban. 
Said  by  his  contemporaries  to  be  "  the  greatest 
preacher  of  his  time,"  "  an  incomparable  man," 
and  a  "prodigy  of  learning,"  he  was  welcomed 
by  the  Protestants  as  a  second  Calvin  ;  and 
holding  conferences  for  some  time  at  Geneva, 
attracted  a  group  of  young  men,  who  became 
his  diciples,  and  the  apostles  of  his  spirit.  It  is 
not  needful  to  follow  him  into  the  later  years 
of  his  life — always  a  centre  of  spiritual  power 
and  reform,  but  led  away  into  a  mild  communion 
of  the  Brookfarm  type,  and  into  the  founding  of 
a  sect  that  bore  his  name.  His  better  influence 
survived  in  a  brave  but  foolish  effort  after  his 
death,  when  his  congregation  sent  their  preacher, 


104  STRUGGLING   RUT   PREVAILING. 

with  La  Badie's  widow,  and  many  more  of  their 
number,  to  attempt  the  conversion  of  the  heathen 
at  Surinam.     It  survived  to  more  effect  in  Jacob 

Spener.  Spener,  the  most  distinguished  of  the  group 
that  had  gathered  round  their  teacher  at  Geneva, 
a  man  whose  influence  on  the  religious  Hfe  of 
Germany,  and  partially  upon  our  own,  may  be 
traced  through  more  than  one  century.  It  was 
in  this  school  of  pious  thought  that  the  mission 
found  a  congenial  home  ;  and,  though  Spener 
died  when  Ziegenbalg  was  on  his  way  to  India, 
a   more    powerful    teacher    survived.      August 

Francke.  Hermann  Francke,  Professor  of  Theology  at 
Halle,  is  remembered  in  these  days  for  his 
Orphan  House,  with  vast  buildings  that  eclipse 
the  University,  and  the  institutions — bewilder- 
ing in  number  and  size — that  are  housed  within 
its  walls.  He  is  known  to  a  smaller  number  as 
a  witness  to  that  faith  in  faith,  and  in  the  power 
of  prayer,  out  of  which  those  institutions  grew, 
and  which  has  created  some  of  the  most  striking 
charities  of  our  own  century,  from  those  of  John 
Falk,  the  Councillor  at  Weimar,  down  to  those 
of  George  MUller  and  Mr.  Spurgeon.  The  man 
as  he  was  in  his  own  home  is  largely  forgotten  ; 
"  famous    German    saint,"    as    Carlyle   acknow- 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  105 

ledges  ;  "  founder  of  the  Pietists,"  he  adds,  and  His  personal 
"of  the  grand  Orphan  House  built  by  charitable  i^^^^"^^- 
beggings  ;"  but  in  truth,  one  of  the  most  learned 
and  thoughtful  and  eloquent  men  of  his  age,  a 
man  of  the  widest  views,  and  the  largest  heart ; 
and,  though  surrounded  by  his  2000  orphans, 
and  holding  the  threads  of  correspondence,  as 
we  shall  see,  between  Tranquebar  and  Halle, 
making  "  magnificent  proposals  "  for  an  Oriental 
college  and  a  universal  seminary,  which  would 
train  men  for  Christian  service  all  over  the 
world.  At  Halle,  and  even  at  Berlin,  the  mag- 
netic power  of  his  personal  influence  carried  all 
before  it — and  to  Halle,  and  under  that  influence, 
there  came  a  student  whose  connection  with  the 
mission  lasts  till  this  hour. 

Count  Zinzendorf  fell  under  Francke's  care  Zinzendorf. 
when  he  was  only  ten  ;  at  sixteen  he  could 
compose  a  Greek  oration  and  speak  in  admir- 
able Latin  ;  and  at  eighteen  his  mediation  was 
accepted  between  the  theologians  of  Halle  and 
those  of  Wittenberg  ;  at  twenty-two  he  resigned 
the  ambitions  of  his  order,  and  the  friendships  and 
brilliance  of  the  Saxon  Court,  for  the  freedom 
to  work  for  God.  The  child  who  had  tossed 
letters  to  the  Saviour  out   of  the  windows  of 


I06  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

Hennersdorf,  the  boy  of  fifteen  who  had 
founded  the  Order  of  the  Seed  Corn,  with  its 
pledge  to  seek  the  conversion  of  the  heathen, 
the  student  who  wrote,  "  I  would  rather  be 
despised  and  hated  for  the  sake  of  Jesus,  than 
beloved  for  my  own,"  the  courtier,  who  at 
nineteen,  among  the  gaieties  of  Paris,  chose  as 
his  motto,  "  ^ternitate,"  because,  he  says, 
"  eternity  alone  fills  my  thoughts  " — was  to  be 
led,  by  the  strange,  strong  hand  of  God  into 
such  an  entanglement  of  circumstances  that  his 
connection  with  the  mission  became  inevitable. 
He  had  made  a  covenant  with  God  before  he 
was  six.  "  Be  Thou  mine,  dear  Saviour,  and 
I  will  be  Thine ; "  and  on  the  day  of  his 
marriage,  he  and  his  wife  had  made  another, 
"  to  be  ready  at  a  moment's  warning  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  the  heathen."  Later  he  writes  in 
an  ecstasy  of  fervour,  "  I  have  but  one  passion, 
and  it  is  He."  Letters  were  already  reaching 
Halle  from  Tranquebar,  and  the  Orphan  Press 
was  carrying  them  to  a  multitude  of  readers  ; 
Ziegenbalg  himself  on  his  hasty  journey  home, 
had  stayed  with  Zinzendorf,  and  no  man  could 
have  such  a  guest  without  feeling  the  fire  that 
consumed  his   spirit;    and   in    1731,  Zinzendorf 


STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING.  10/ 

Still  young  (for  he  was  only  born  with  the 
century),  and  always  brilliant,  found  himself 
at  Copenhagen  attending  the  coronation  of 
Charles  VI. 

It  was   while  there   that   he    learned    of   two  Two  move- 
missionary  movements,  each   of  which   left   an  "^^"  ^' 
abiding  influence. 

In  the  north  of  Europe,  shrinking  back  The  Lapps. 
among  its  wastes  of  snow  and  sterile  land,  there 
are  still  to  be  found  the  remains  of  an  ancient 
people,  Asiatic  in  their  origin,  dark  and  mean  of 
feature,  of  low  stature  that  seldom  exceeds  four 
feet,  and  of  habits  and  traditions  altogether 
unlike  their  neighbours.  Slowly  retreating 
before  the  stronger  race,  steadily  crushed  and 
dispossessed  by  them,  unable  to  combine  with 
them,  they  are  fading  off  the  earth,  nor  had  they 
ever  much  footing  on  it,  or  left  much  mark  ;  but 
when  they  have  passed  away,  they  will  be 
remembered  for  the  sake  of  the  brave,  noble 
man  who  set  up  among  them  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

The  land  of  the  Lapps  is  weird  and  solemn.  Lapland. 
Arctic  seas  beat  upon  its  shores,  the  long  arctic 
winter  binds  it   in   rigour  of  ice  and  snow,  for 
weeks  the  sun  never  climbs  the  sky,  for  months 


I08  STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING. 

he  flings  a  sickly  light  across  the  white,  silent 
hills  ;  apparently  for  endless  miles  there  are  no 
houses,  no  roads,  no  voices.     But  when  the  year 
turns   round,  meadows  and  gay  flowers    spread 
up  to  the  feet  of  the  glacier.     Countless  streams 
rush  down  by  wooded  banks  and  busy  sawmills 
to  the   ocean,  the  sun  never  sets,  and  the  fish 
leap    and    sparkle     in     the    warm    night,    the 
orchards    are    sweet  with    blossom   and   full    of 
the  songs  of  birds,  glorious  forests  spread  over 
the  mountains,  the  reaper's  sickle  rustles  among 
the  corn,  and  mosquitoes  dart  and  sting  under 
the  welcome  shade  of  the  trees.     As  in  Switzer- 
land, the  grass  and  the  snow  lie  side  by  side  ; 
while  the  valleys  are  sultry,  the  mountains  are 
ice.      There    are    lofty    passes,   walls    of    cliff, 
shepherd's  huts  perched  in  lonely  spots  among 
the  hills,  the  cattle  bells  tinkling  through  the 
air.      But   this    arctic    Switzerland    is    not    so 
beautiful   as   strange,  it  is  vast  and  still.     The 
mountains   spread   out   in  huge  .shapeless  bulk, 
with    no   peak   to   break   the  sameness  of  their 
blunt   and   flattened  summits.     The  valleys  are 
monotonous,  and  often  bare,  like  deep  troughs  of 
mountain   waves   cut  in   a  mountain   sea.     And 
everywhere  there  is  silence,  broken  only  by  the 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  IO9 

hoof  of  the  reindeer,  the  cry  of  the  wolf,  or  the 
roar  of  a  cataract. 

Although  now  reduced  to  a  few  thousands,  Settlers  in 
these  Lapps,  or  as  they  had  rather  be  called  ^'^'^^"^• 
Finns,  once  occupied  the  entire  upper  portion  of 
the  Scandinavian  peninsula.  Fishing  in  the 
fjords  and  rivers,  or  wandering  over  the 
pastures  with  herds  of  reindeer,  they  lived 
a  contented  and  barbarous  life,  withdrawing 
into  the  hills  as  emigrants  came  among  them 
from  the  south,  and  maintaining  the  wild 
customs  of  their  fathers.  Gradually,  as  the 
settlers  multiplied,  they  came  to  be  incorporated 
with  the  kingdom,  and  subject  to  its  laws,  dwelt 
with  the  Europeans  in  the  same  parishes,  and 
were  ministered  to  by  the  same  clergy.  And, 
at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  though 
they  were  mostly  confined  to  the  province  of 
Fin  mark,  and  were  so  far  separate,  they  were 
treated  as  an  integral  part  of  the  population. 
Yet  there  had  been  really  no  fusion  to  speak 
of,  and,  although  by  the  sea  coast  they  and 
the  Norwegians  dwelt  as  neighbours,  there 
was  a  trackless  and  almost  boundless  region, 
stretching  into  the  interior  and  up  into  the 
North,  and  over  which  the  Lapps  and  the  rein- 


no  STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING. 

deer  roamed  undisturbed.  Here  also  the  Lapp 
was  still  a  heathen.  Behind  his  tent,  on  a 
rough  table,  rudely  adorned  with  bunches  of 
birch,  there  was  a  log  of  wood,  and  to  this, 
if  the  season  had  been  good,  he  sacrificed  a 
reindeer. 

But  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  the  thunder  and 
the  wind,  rocks  and  mountains,  rivers  and  seas, 
were  all  the  objects  of  his  homage  and  all  to  be 
propitiated  ;  and  the  Lapp  was  his  own  priest, 
and  needed  no  temple.  As  his  sense  of  God 
faded  out,  his  fear  of  evil  powers  increased,  and 
he  fell  under  the  enchantments  and  spells  of  the 
magicians,  who  controlled  the  demon  world. 
After  death,  the  souls  of  the  good  reached, 
although  only  by  weary  pilgrimage,  a  land  of 
light,  lying  on  the  summit  of  a  holy  mountain, 
and  where  those  who  had  been  guilty  of  lying, 
theft,  or  strife,  dared  not  enter ;  and  there  they 
lived  the  life  of  the  gods,  drinking  brandy  and 
smoking  tobacco.  As  for  the  evil,  they  passed 
into  a  land  of  pain,  a  cloudy  land,  where  they 
found  no  rest,  but  wandered  back  into  the  world 
as  wild  beasts  or  wicked  spirits  to  torment  the 
living.  Practically  they  had  fallen  into  demon 
worship.     "  I  found  village  after  village,"  says  an 


STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING.  Ill 

early  traveller,  "  where  they  sacrificed  to  devils." 
The  Lapps  who  went  to  Christian  churches  were 
little  better.  They  kept  up  their  magicians  at 
home,  and  preferred  them  to  their  clergymen. 
When  their  children  were  born,  they  were  pre- 
sented to  their  gods  ;  they  were  baptised,  but  a 
certain  wise  woman  was  at  hand  to  wash  away 
the  baptism  in  hot  water  as  soon  as  they  got 
home  ;  they  had  been  dedicated  to  Christ,  but 
a  ring  was  prepared  with  magical  rites,  and 
hung  round  the  child's  breast  in  token  that  it 
was  a  heathen ;  it  had  received  a  baptismal 
name,  but  it  was  only  used  before  Christians, 
and  another  secret  name  was  imposed,  one 
which  the  gods  loved  ;  while  the  communicants 
asked  the  pardon  of  their  idols  for  going  to  the 
Lord's  Table  ;  when  the  sacrament  was  over, 
kneeling  by  the  first  running  stream  they 
crossed,  they  murmured,  "  Our  God,  or  Christian 
God,  may  the  mightier  prevail,  for  we  have 
done  the  will  of  both."  They  secretly  preserved 
the  Communion  bread  in  their  mouths,  till  the 
service  was  over,  then  plucked  it  out,  hung  it  on 
a  church  wall  and  shot  a  bullet  through  it. 
When  all  this  was  so,  one  could  scarcely  expect 
that  they  would  sacrifice  no  reindeer,  or   that 


112  STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILING. 

they  did  not  believe  in  the  shapeless  log  that 
had  stood  behind  the  tents  of  their  fathers. 

Hither,   into    this    forgotten    and    forbidding 
land,  there  had  sped  a  messenger  of  God. 

Thomas  von  Westen  was  born  at  Drontheim 
in  1682.  As  the  eldest  of  ten  children,  his 
father  designed  him  for  business,  and  a 
struggle  which  lasted  long  commenced  between 
the  boy's  tastes  and  the  father's  prudence. 
Young  Von  Westen  was  seized  with  an  ambition 
for  the  Church  ;  although  books  were  kept  out 
of  his  way,  he  would  be  found  concealed  in  the 
hay,  committing  Latin  words  to  memory,  and 
at  last,  he  had  made  such  progress  in  these 
secret  studies,  that  a  benevolent  neighbour 
offered  to  bear  his  college  expenses.  To  this 
proposal  his  father  yielded,  although  insisting 
upon  the  compromise  that  his  son  would  study 
medicine,  and  at  least  make  money.  The  bent 
of  young  Westen's  mind  was  too  strong,  however, 
and  as  his  father  died  when  he  was  on  the  eve  of 
taking  out  his  degree,  and  he  was  left  too  poor 
to  pay  the  fees,  he  seized  the  opportunity  to 
shift  from  medicine  to  theology.  His  circum- 
stances, never  good,  were  now  worse,  and  he 
went  through  all  the  hardships  of  a  genuine  poor 


STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILING.  II 3 

student.  Every  second  day  he  was  able  to  pay 
for  a  scanty  dinner,  and  as  he  and  his  com- 
panion had  but  one  black  coat  between  them, 
and  that  threadbare,  only  one  of  them  could  go 
out  at  a  time.  So  poor  a  living  does  not  seem 
to  have  affected  his  studies,  and  probably  that 
they  were  congenial  was  sufficient  compensa- 
tion. He  seems  to  have  busied  himself  especi-  His  scholar- 
ally  with  Oriental  literature,  and  to  have  made  ^^^P' 
so  high  a  name  that  both  Czar  Peter  and 
his  own  sovereign  were  anxious  to  employ 
him  ;  for,  having  travelled  into  Russia  on 
some  quest  of  his  favourite  study,  he  was 
offered  a  professorship  at  the  University  of 
Moscow,  and  declined  it,  as  Frederic  IV. 
had  made  him  royal  librarian.  Income  was 
certainly  no  inducement  to  his  choice,  for  the 
office  appears  to  have  had  no  other  salary 
attached  than  the  hope  of  promotion,  and  dur- 
ing the  three  years  he  held  it,  he  was  indebted 
to  the  kindness  of  a  pious  widow  who  fed  and 
clothed  him.  The  promotion  came  at  last  in 
the  appointment  to  the  valuable  living  of 
Wedoens  in  the  diocese  of  his  native  town,  and 
he  redressed  the  balance  of  the  past  by  marry- 
ing his  benefactress.    He  had  reached  at  last  the 

I 


Norwegian 
Church  dead 


114  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

object  of  his  life,  to  be  a  preacher  of  Christ 
Jesus,  and  he  was  content. 

The  beginning  of  his  pastorate  was  not  pro- 
pitious. The  journey  had  to  be  made  by  sea, 
and  on  the  way  he  lost  one  of  his  step-daughters 
by  shipwreck,  as  well  as  the  property  his  wife 
brought  him.  The  parish  itself  received  him 
The  coldly.      The   Church  of  Norway  at   that  time 

was  in  a  state  of  supreme  orthodoxy  and  utter 
spiritual  death.  Careless  of  their  people,  and 
incompetent  to  teach,  selfish  and  avaricious, 
without  the  affectation  of  earnestness,  and  with- 
out the  check  of  public  opinion,  the  clergy  were 
powerless  for  good,  and  often  openly  evil. 
Under  such  training,  their  flocks  were  little 
better.  The  more  he  preached  Christ,  the  more 
wroth  the  people  waxed  against  him.  It  had 
never  been  so,  they  said  ;  he  was  introducing  new 
gods ;  they  accused  him  to  the  Bishop ;  they 
demanded  his  deposition  of  the  King ;  they 
turned  him  from  their  houses,  and  laughed  at  his 
appeals.  A  picture  of  the  Church  at  the  time 
describes  it  as  "  waste ;  the  punishment  of  a 
Sodom  may  well  be  feared  ;  drunkenness  is  no 
longer  a  sin,  envy  and  strife  are  habitual,  false 
weights  and  measures  are  accounted  fair  gain  ; 


STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILING.  II5 

ignorance  of  religion  is  universal,  cursing  and 
swearing  are  the  common  tongue ;  Sabbath- 
breaking  is  no  shame ;  the  Word  of  God  is 
despised,  and  every  means  of  furthering  it  is 
openly  ridiculed  ;  with  few  exceptions,  there  is 
no  more  difference  between  Christians  and  our 
heathen  forefathers,  than  the  name."  The 
higher  pastors  appointed  the  lower,  and  took 
care  that  the  new  men  should  be  no  better  than 
themselves.  There  was  only  one  Bible  to  every 
five  thousand  of  the  population. 

With  what  patient  labour  Von  Westen 
wrought,  how  he  reformed  his  parish,  how  six 
men  gathered  round  him,  of  the  same  mind  as 
himself,  until  these  "  seven  stars  "  as  they  were 
called,  shed  their  light  over  Norway.  How, 
just  as  he  had  brought  his  strayed  flock  back  to 
the  Good  Shepherd,  as  he  says,  he  was  con- 
strained to  leave  them  and  set  off  on  a  journey 
of  infinite  hardship,  to  the  Lapps,  a  journey  to  be 
three  tim.es  repeated.  How  fearlessly  he  pur- 
sued his  work,  and  in  some  slender  fashion  at 
least,  planted  the  Gospel ;  how  he  defended  his 
mission  and  the  plan  of  missions  against  all 
comers  ;  how  at  last  he  died  so  poor  (for  he  His  death 
spent  all  upon  his  work)  that  he  did  not  leave 


Il6  STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILING. 

enough  to  bury  him  ;  how  enemies  and  unkind- 
ness  pursued  him  to  the  end  ;  and  there  was  not 
a  word  spoken  over  his  lonely  grave  ;  but  how 
from  mouth  to  mouth  in  Finnland  there  ran  for 
a  century  the  simple  tale  of  "  The  parson  who 
loved  the  Finns ; "  that  is  all  too  long  a  story  to 
tell  here,  but  may  be  read — with  many  touching 
letters  of  that  brave  heart — by  those  who  will 

When    Zinzendorf  arrived  at  Copenhagen,  it 
was  all  over.     Von  Westen  was  dead,  the  "  seven 
stars "  had   set ;    but  there  was    another   story 
that  must  have  touched  him  still  more. 
Lofoden.  Far   up    in    the   mysterious   north,  where   for 

weeks  the  sun  never  sets,  among  the  countless 
islands  of  countless  shapes,  that  lie  like  some 
vast  breakwater  across  the  wash  of  the  North 
Atlantic,  and  over  the  xA-rctic  Circle  into  the 
sweep  of  lonely  arctic  seas,  is  the  strange 
island-labyrinth  of  the  Lofoden.  There  is  to 
be  found  the  "  row  of  shark's  teeth,"  lofty  peaks 
of  rock,  that  descend  for  the  most  part  sheer 
down  into  the  waves  without  strand  or  beach, 
streaked  with  veins  of  grass  and  scraggy  under- 
wood, and  divided  from  one  another  by  winding 
channels  of  deep  sombre  sea,  often  not  broader 
than   a  river  ;  and  on  one  of  these,  nestling  in 


STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING.  II/ 

the  shelter  of  a  jagged  mountain,  as  it  curves 
toward  the  west,  and  fronting  the  mainland  and 
the  smoother  waters,  is  the  hamlet  of  Vaagen,  a 
few  wooden  fisher  houses,  bright  and  warm  to 
look  at,  but  otherwise  not  noticeable. 

More  than  a  century  and  a-half  ago,  in  the  Hans  Egede. 
year  1707,  a  new  minister  had  entered  the  par- 
sonage beside  the  little  church,  with  charge  over 
the  hamlet  and  the  scattered  houses  on  the 
upland.  Hans  Egede  was  scarcely  one-and- 
twenty  when  he  left  the  University  of  Copen- 
hagen, and  settled  among  the  rocks  and  snows, 
and  the  few  scattered  fishermen  and  farmers 
that  made  up  his  congregation,  and  brought  to 
him  Gertrude  Rask  to  be  his  wife,  but  he  felt 
neither  loneliness  nor  privation  in  the  work 
about  him.  It  was  his  simple  ambition  to  follow 
Christ,  and  to  set  Him  before  his  flock  ;  and  as 
in  this  teaching  and  spirit,  he  had  the  hearty 
sympathy  of  his  wife,  and  God  gave  the  hearts 
of  the  people  into  their  hand — they  lived  in 
great  thankfulness.  In  the  long  winter  nights 
he  read  in  time-worn  chronicles  how,  centuries 
before,  the  old  sea-robbers  swept  down  into 
softer  southern  waters,  and  left  there  their  little 
colonies  of  brave,   strong-willed,    strong-limbed 


Il8  STRUGGLING    RUT   PREVAILING. 

adventurers  to  settle,  and  fight,  and  rule,  until 
the  name  of  the  Norsemen  filled  Europe  with 
wonder  and  awe.  Norseman  himself,  his  pulse 
beat  quicker  as  he  listened  to  the  fresh,  quaint 
story  telling  of  the  old  sagas.  But  what  touched 
him  most  was  to  read  how  his  fathers  were  con- 
quered by  a  stronger  than  they ;  of  the  quiet 
and  steadfast  progress  of  the  Gospel  as  it  crept 
from  land  to  land  ;  of  the  lonely,  peaceful  men 
that  carried  it  at  hazard  of  their  lives  ;  the  fierce 
conflict  that  it  bred  as  the  North  rose  against  it 
in  defence  of  its  old  gods,  and  how  the  grim 
warriors  bowed  their  heads  at  last,  and  turned 
the  sword  that  had  fought  against  Christ  to  fight 
for  Him  against  the  heathen.  Then,  also,  as  he 
read,  there  was  wakened  within  him  the  thought 
that  changed  the  purpose  of  his  life. 

For  it  was  written  how  that  Eric  the  Red,  sea 
king  and  pirate,  was  banished  for  three  years 
from  Iceland  for  some  misdeed,  and,  setting  forth 
at  the  head  of  a  few  followers,  came  by  chance 
upon  an  unknown  shore,  then,  when  his  exile 
was  expired,  brought  back  the  news  of  a  Green- 
land, rich  in  pasture  and  pleasant  woods,  richer 
even  than  Iceland  where  "  the  rivers  were  thick 
with  fish  and  the  grass  dropped  butter ; "  which 


STRUGGLING    BUT    TREVAILING.  I  I9 

SO  took  the  fancy  of  his  countrymen,  that  five 
and-twenty  shiploads  of  them  returned  with  him, 
and  the  land  was  settled.  The  Christian  popula- 
tion multiplied  till  there  were  many  villages  and 
churches,  and  even  convents,  a  cathedral,  and  a 
bishop,  and  then,Jn  1406,  Greenland  disappeared 
from  history. 

Brooding  over  what  he  read  till  it  became 
insupportable,  there  sprang  up  timidly  another 
thought  beside  it — that  he  would  himself  go  out 
in  search  of  that  strange  lost  land.  He  seems  at 
first  to  have  been  almost  afraid  to  entertain  it, 
and  he  entered  on  a  period  of  great  excitement 
and  perplexity.  One  day  he  w^as  clear  that  he  Egede's  per- 
must  go,  the  next  he  was  all  doubt.  Sometimes  P^^xities. 
he  imagined  it  was  self-will ;  sometimes  he 
felt  it  was  the  call  of  God.  His  thoughts  grew 
so  vivid  that  they  took  shape  in  visions,  and  he 
relates  how,  in  a  dream,  a  crowd  of  Greenlanders 
hemmed  him  round,  crying,  "  O  man,  whom  God 
has  blessed,  pity  us."  Finally,  when  the  struggle 
was  over  in  himself,  he  had  to  face  another. 
His  aged  mother  besought  him  not  to  bring 
down  her  grey  hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave  ; 
his  wife,  clasping  their  children  to  her  bosom, 
besought   him  to  forbear  his  barbarous  design. 


I20  STRUGGLING    RUT    PREVAILING. 

He  tried  a  compromise,  but  with  a  pitiful  result ; 
and  at  last  he  promised  his  wife  he  would  make 
no  effort  that  she  did  not  sanction.  The  old 
sunshine  came  back,  and  he  felt  happy  that,  as 
he  thought,  he  was  done  with  his  dream  for 
ever. 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  curiously  suggestive. 
Misgivings  now  began  to  cross  his  wife,  the 
peace  and  gladness  of  their  home  were  invaded 
by  slander :  The  people  grew  cold,  suspicious, 
and  changed,  and  the  irritations  thrown  in  her 
way  increased  to  such  a  pitch,  that  she  became 
anxious  to  leave  the  place  for  which  she  had 
sacrificed  her  husband.  Meanwhile,  as  he  read 
one  day  in  his  study,  the  words  in  Matthew  came 
Decision,  upon  him  with  overwhelming  power  :  *'  He  that 
taketh  not  his  cross  and  followeth  after  Me,  is  not 
worthy  of  Me  ;  he  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose 
it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  My  sake  shall 
find  it."  His  dream  of  rest  in  a  Norway  par- 
sonage was  broken  for  ever.  He  begged  God 
that  either  He  would  drive  the  mission  entirely 
from  his  thoughts  or  would  incline  his  wife  to  it. 
With  a  strange,  keen  earnestness,  he  watched 
her  struggles.  One  day  she  flung  her  arms 
about  his  neck  and  begged  him  to  forgive  her 


STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING.  121 

faint  heartedness  and  unbelief.  "  Henceforth 
and  for  ever  I  am  entirely  thine,  and  thy  God  is 
my  God  ;  thy  faith  is  my  faith,  and  where  thou 
goest  I  will  go — death  alone  can  divide  us."  It 
was  the  finger  of  God,  Egede  said,  and  from  that 
day  husband  and  wife  stood  side  by  side,  the 
one  as  resolute  and  brave  as  the  other.  Strength- 
ened by  God,  he  writes,  and  with  her  to  help 
him,  he  was  able  to  go  through  the  pain  of  fare- 
well, and  to  leave  the  little  church  to  which  the 
people  crowded  with  streaming  eyes,  and  many  a 
rough  grasp  of  the  hand  that  was  meant  to  atone 
for  hard  words,  while  young  and  old  heaped 
blessings  on  them  as  they  went.  There  was  no 
society  to  provide  the  cost  or  arrange  the  details. 
He  had  no  private  means  or  wealthy  sympath- 
isers. The  whale-fishers  shook  their  heads  and 
told  him  how  it  fared  with  the  last  colony  that 
sailed  thither  from  their  harbour,  and  was  cap- 
tured by  the  French  and  carried  into  Dunkirk. 
We  find  him  at  Copenhagen  stirring  up  the 
Missionary  College,  where  they  beg  him  to  wait 
for  the  "  summer  of  peace,"  since  the  war  with 
Sweden  is  straining  the  exchequer,  and,  "  alas," 
as  he  adds,  "  there  is  no  money  to  carry  on  the 
wars  of  the  Lord." 


122  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

Egede  haunt-  There  are  not  many  narratives  in  missions  so 
mg  quays.  touching  as  the  story  of  these  four  years,  through 
which  we  see  the  figure  of  young  Egede  haunt- 
ing the  streets  and  quays,  the  scheme  of  a  colony 
in  his  head,  knocking  from  door  to  door,  plead- 
ing, persuading,  and  proving  to  the  burghers 
that  it  was  their  interest  to  open  up  a  trade, 
offering  to  go  out  in  any  ship  if  they  would  give 
him  a  passage,  till  finally  everybody  gets  to 
know  and  wonder  at  him,  till  the  merchants 
shun  him  as  a  bore,  and  the  sailors  marvel  with 
a  kind  of  reverence  as  they  see  him  gazing  wist- 
fully after  the  departing  ships,  and  at  the  corners 
men  whisper  that  he  has  seen  strange  visions  of 
the  Lord.  Four  years  of  alternating  hope  and 
disappointment,  till  at  last  the  king  not  only 
sanctioned  the  colony,  but  guaranteed  a  yearly 
income  of  £4$  to  the  missionary,  and,  on  the 
Sets  sail.  3rd  of  May,  the  little  expedition  sailed  out  of  the 

harbour  of  Bergen.  It  was  nearly  thirteen  years 
since  the  first  seed  of  the  work  was  sown,  and 
there  had  not  been  much  visible  growth  ;  but  it 
had  grown  downwards,  and  struck  such  root  in 
Egede's  heart,  that  it  was  like  a  part  of  him- 
self 

On  the  3rd  of  July  they  effected  a  landing 


STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING.  1 23 

on  what  is  now  known  as  Hope  Island,  on 
the  west  coast,  and  knelt  down  and  thanked 
God.  One  ship  had  been  lost,  but  the  men  were 
saved.  To  the  dismay  of  Egede,  the  few  natives 
fled  at  their  approach,  and  the  huts  were  deserted. 
But,  by  the  time  the  Christmas  trees  were  burn- 
ing in  their  Norway  homes,  God  sent,  he  says, 
a  Christmas  gift  to  them,  for  a  hunting  party, 
entering,  as  they  thought,  a  group  of  desolate 
huts,  found  them  occupied  by  a  hundred  and 
fifty  Greenlanders,  who  used  them  as  their  winter 
but  not  summer  residences,  and,  being  detained 
there  by  stress  of  weather,  opened  communica- 
tions with  such  effect,  that  friendly  relations 
were  established,  and  Hope  Island  was  no 
longer  isolated. 

The  burst  of  joy  with  which  Egede  welcomed  Hardships. 
this  intelligence  is  very  touching.  Not  only 
must  the  situation  have  been  dismal  when  so 
slight  a  hope  could  raise  his  spirits,  but  years 
were  to  pass  before  the  promise  held  out  would 
be  kept.  We  see  him  settling  down  to  his 
patient  toil  in  a  climate  so  rigorous  that "  water 
placed  on  the  fire  to  boil  will  sometimes  freeze 
before  the  heat  can  get  the  upper  hand,"  and  so 
repulsive,  that  to  live  in  it  was  to  live  in  perpet- 


124  STRUGGLING   RUT   PREVAILING. 

ual  banishment,  without  knowing  a  word  of  the 
language,  without  success  to  cheer  him.  His 
diligence  and  enthusiasm  were  unflagging.  We 
cannot  but  enter  into  the  hearty  zeal  with  which 
he  unlocks  the  native  speech  by  means  of  a 
chance  word,  until,  finally,  Genesis  and  the  New 
Testament  were  translated,  and  there  was  a 
printed  language  and  the  beginning  of  a  Christ- 
ian literature.  He  had  been  nearly  fifteen  years 
at  work  without  feeling  that  he  had  made  any 
deep  impression  ;  the  people  mostly  marvelling 
with  a  perverse  wonder  that  white  men  should 
spend  so  much  pains  to  tell  them  what  was  of 
so  little  importance.  He  was  weak  and  worn  ; 
his  wife  lay  sick,  and  he  determined  to  leave  his 
son  in  charge  of  the  mission.  In  Norway  he 
would  find  some  easier  work  in  which  he  might 
end  his  days,  and  by  his  efforts  at  home  con- 
tinue to  sustain  the  mission.  His  wife  offered 
no  opposition,  and  their  return  was  determined, 
when  he  was  overtaken  by  the  great  sorrow  of 
His  wife  dies,  his  life.  "  On  the  2 1st  December,  1735,  Gertrude 
Egede  fell  asleep  in  Jesus."  The  brave  woman 
gone  from  his  side,  he  was  no  longer  himself. 
His  strength  utterly  gave  way,  and  he  fell  sick. 
In  the  summer  of  1736,  he  preached  his  farewell 


STRUGGLING    BUT    TREVAILING.  12$ 

sermon  from  the  touching  words  of  Isaiah : 
"  I  said,  I  have  laboured  in  vain.  I  have  spent 
my  strength  for  nought  and  in  vain  ;  yet  surely 
my  judgment  is  with  the  Lord,  and  my  work 
with  my  God."  After  service  he  baptised  a 
child  by  his  own  name,  Hans,  and  with  a  son, 
two  daughters,  and  the  dead  body  of  his  wife, 
embarked  for  Copenhagen. 

His  great  object  was  never  realised,  but  God 
set  him  to  a  greater,  and  led  him,  like  Paul, 
across  the  limit  of  his  nation,  to  make  of  him 
an  apostle  to  the  heathen,  and  to  be  a  light 
and  example  to  many.  And  if  his  life  was  not  His  work 
one  of  any  remarkable  brilliance,  nor  crowned 
with  any  remarkable  success,  it  was  one  of 
those  brave,  good  lives  by  which  God  spreads 
His  kingdom,  and  a  life  of  which  there  lingers 
in  Greenland  the  still  fresh  tradition,  "  He  was 
our  more  than  father." 

When  Hans  Egede  was  in  Greenland,  and 
before  he  could  dismiss  from  his  mind  the  vision 
of  harvest  fields  such  as  rumour  and  the  old 
chronicles  affirmed,  he  tried  the  experiment  of 
sowing  wheat ;  took  a  patch  of  ground  in  a 
sunny  valley,  burnt  the  long  grass  with  the 
hope    of  charring  and  softening  the  upper  soil, 


126  STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING. 

dropped  In  the  seed,  and  found  that  though 
The  crop  did  the  wheat  grew,  it  would  not  ripen.  When  he 
not  ripen.  |g^^  Greenland  that  was  the  condition  of  his 
mission  work.  He  had  patiently  prepared  the 
ground,  and  patiently  sown  the  seed,  but  there 
came  no  harvest.  It  is  in  keeping  with  his 
heroic  faith,  heroic  in  its  stillness,  that  the 
disappointment  never  made  him  despond  ;  that, 
when  he  sailed  away  southwards  to  his  home, 
he  had  as  much  faith  in  seeing  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  when  he  sailed  northward  with  the 
impetuous  zeal  of  an  apostle.  He  felt  per- 
suaded that  the  seed  of  the  kingdom  would 
ripen  among  the  very  snows,  though  the  gather- 
ing of  the  grain  would  fall  to  other  hands.  And 
it  was  so.  While  Zinzendorf  was  in  Copen- 
hagen, he  heard  that  the  Egede  Mission  was  to 
be  abandoned.  The  trade  was  unprofitable,  the 
traders  were  indifferent,  the  colony  was  turning 
out  ill,  and  there  was  a  growing  persuasion  that 
money  was  squandered  and  life  risked  for  no 
adequate  return.  Paul  Egede,  who  was  pursuing 
his  studies  at  the  University,  had  made  him 
acquainted  with  his  father's  hopes  and  anxieties, 
and  two  Eskimos,  whom  he  had  noticed  among 
the  crowd  at  Court,  had  roused  his  interest  to 


STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILING.  12/ 

the  highest  pitch.     In  the  salons,  where  he  was  Zinzendorf 
welcomed,  and  with  the  kin^  over  whom  he  had  ^^]'^^[^^  ^^^ 

^  mission. 

acquired  a  singular  influence,  he  pleaded  the 
cause  of  the  mission  with  such  effect  that  the 
tide  slowly  turned  in  its  favour,  not  a  little 
moved,  also,  by  news  from  Godhaab  of  a  great 
take  of  blubber ;  and  first  the  one  year's  support 
allotted  to  the  missionary  was  extended  by  the 
king  to  two,  and,  finally,  ships  sailed  out  with 
the  welcome  greeting  that  the  mission  would  be 
prosecuted  with  vigour.  The  same  ships  carried 
the  missionaries  by  whom  that  pledge  was  so 
unexpectedly  redeemed. 

Nine  years  before  his  visit  to  Copenhagen,  Moravian 
Count  Zinzendorf  had  opened  an  asylum  on  his  Brethren, 
estate  for  certain  persecuted  Christians  from 
Moravia.  They  were  the  descendants  of  T/ie 
Ancient  Unity  of  the  Brethren.  Their  fathers 
were  reformers  before  the  Reformation,  and 
they  had  sought  escape  from  a  bondage  that  was 
intolerable.  One  Christian  David,  a  carpenter, 
had  been  the  leader  in  the  spiritual  movement, 
and  he  became  the  leader  of  the  emigration. 

At  the   head  of  the  first  band  of  exiles,  he  Herrnhut. 
appeared  on  a  little  hill  near  the  Count's  village 
of  Berthelsdorf,  in  Lusatia,  smote  his  axe  into 


teers. 

Boehmisch 
and  Stach. 


128  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

one  of  the  trees,  and  cried,  "  Here  the  sparrow- 
hath  found  an  house,  and  the  swallow  a  nest  for 
herself,  where  she  may  lay  her  young ;  even 
Thine  altars,  O  Lord  of  hosts,  my  king,  and  my 
God  ;  "  and  here,  on  this  Hutberg,  there  was 
slowly  and  painfully  built  the  famous  Herrnhut, 
or  Watch  of  the  Lord. 
Two  voiun-  Among  the  emigrants  who  escaped    to   this 

refuge  were  Frederick  Boehmisch  and  Matthew 
Stach.  They  were  born  about  the  same  time, 
in  the  same  rank  of  life,  both  of  them  of  good 
parents,  and  in  villages  not  far  apart ;  but,  until 
their  exile,  they  seem  to  have  had  no  acquaint- 
ance. It  happened  that  these  two  men  found 
themselves,  one  day  in  1 73 1,  levelling  ground 
for  a  cemetery. 

Those  w^ho  have  loitered  within  the  living 
wall  of  dense  green  beech  w^hich  encloses  that 
space  of  garden-ground,  and  sauntered  under  the 
straight  rows  of  even  limes  that  intersect  and 
fling  their  shadows  down  on  level  walks,  and 
noticed  the  exquisite  order  of  the  square  plots 
of  grass,  all  numbered,  and  lettered,  and  alike, 
and  the  odours  of  sweet  flowers,  and  songs  of 
birds  that  seem  muffled  by  the  stillness,  and 
watched  the  smoke  curl   up,  a  few  paces  down 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  1 29 

the  hill,  from  the  village  of  the  living,  which  is 
almost  as  grave,  and  peaceful,  and  regular  as 
this  God's  acre  of  the  dead,  could  scarcely  con- 
ceive what  it  all  looked  like  a  century  and  a-half 
ago. 

But  there,  on  that  unpromising  hillside,  the 
talk  fell  upon  Greenland.  Four  years  before, 
Zinzendorf  had  told  them  of  Egede's  noble 
work,  and  as  soon  as  he  returned  from  Denmark, 
he  pleaded  for  it  with  all  the  eloquence  of  his 
heart.  They  found  that  each  had  been  fixing 
his  thoughts  upon  it,  secretly  and  timidly,  as 
on  something  too  daring  for  their  humility  and 
possibly  not  God's  will,  yet  so  steadily  that, 
as  they  opened  out  their  minds,  it  was  plain 
they  were  both  eager  to  go  to  the  north,  and, 
"  believing,  with  all  simplicity,  in  the  promise  to 
two  or  three,  we  knelt  down  by  the  next  brush- 
wood, and  begged  we  would  be  guided  to  do 
right." 

They  wrote  a  letter  to  the  congregation,  offer- 
ing themselves  as  Greenland  missionaries,  which 
was  received  with  depressing  caution.  These 
young  persons  were  enthusiastic  and,  perhaps, 
carried  away :  they  had  not  counted  the  cost ; 

How  were  they  to  get  to  Greenland,  and  what 

K 


130  STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING. 

would  poor  peasants  such  as  they  do  when 
they  got  there  ?  They  were  compelled  to  listen 
to  these  surmises  for  nearly  a  year,  "  not  letting 
our  spirit  be  disturbed  thereby,  but  waiting  in 
stillness  the  Lord's  will ; "  and  then  Zinzendorf 
asked  if  they  abode  by  their  resolve.  Answer- 
ing a  joyful  Yes,  they  heard  from  him  a  recapit- 
ulation of  the  incredible  hardships  and  dangers 
before  them,  but  were  told  that  if  they  still 
persisted  and  had  trust  in  the  Redeemer,  they 
might  make  ready  for  the  journey.  It  was 
nearly  a  year,  however,  after  this  before  the 
resolution  was  carried  out,  and,  by  that  time, 
Boehmisch  was  on  a  journey  to  look  after  some 
of  the  emigrants  elsewhere,  and  Christian  Stach 
Christian  volunteered  to  go  with  his  cousin.  Christian 
David.  David  was  joined  with  them,  as,  both  by  experi- 

ence and  his   trade,  a  valuable   auxiliary,  and, 
early  in  1733,  the  three  men  set  out  for  Copen- 
hagen. 
The  outfit.  Their   outfit   was    very   simple.      A   sum    of 

money  had  come  in  from  Venice,  from  which 
enough  was  taken  to  defray  the  cost  of  reaching 
Denmark.  For  the  rest,  "we  did  not  trouble 
our  heads  how  we  should  get  to  Greenland,  or 
how  we  should   live  in  that  country,  believing 


STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING.  13I 

that  He  who  had  sent  a  supply  for  our  journey  at 
the  critical  moment,  would  take  care  for  all  that 
was  needful.  The  congregation  consisted  chiefly 
of  poor  exiles,  and  we  ourselves  had  nothing 
but  the  clothes  on  our  backs."  Information  was 
as  scanty  as  means.  "  The  congregation  had  no 
experience  of  missions  ;  and  we  were  told  to 
act  as  God  and  His  Spirit  would  show  us.  We 
were  to  love  one  another  brotherly,  to  look  up 
to  Christian  David  as  our  father,  and  to  offer 
our  assistance  to  the  long-tried  apostle  of  the 
Greenlanders,  Hans  Egede."  The  king  was 
delighted  with  their  simplicity  and  faith.  "If 
all  the  brethren,"  he  said,  "  will  only  go  to 
Greenland,  I  will  undertake  to  furnish  them  with 
a  passage,  and  whatever  is  necessary  for  their 
subsistence."  "  I  had  not  believed  there  was 
such  a  king,"  Christian  David  wrote  back  to 
Herrnhut ;  and  the  king's  chamberlain  was 
saying,  "  I  had  not  believed  there  was  such 
faith."  ''  How  will  you  live  in  Greenland  ?  "  Von  ^ 
Pless  had  asked  them.  "  By  the  labours  of  our 
hands  and  the  blessing  of  God.  We  mean  to 
take  out  seeds,  plant  a  garden,  build  a  house, 
and  be  burdensome  to  no  one."  "  But  there  is 
no  timber."     "  Then  we  will  dig  a  hole  in  the 


132  STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING. 

ground,  and  live  there."  The  difficulties  and 
trials  of  the  next  few  years  were  of  a  kind  that 
men  are  rarely  called  to  bear.  Having  no 
salary,  and  being  therefore  compelled  to  live  by 
their  own  labours,  they  made  speed  to  learn  to 
hunt  and  fish,  but  with  miserable  ill  success. 
Sometimes  food  was  not  to  be  had,  their  sup- 
plies from  home  failed,  they  were  forced  to 
strive  to  eat  like  the  people,  and  for  years  the 
only  water  they  could  get  was  melted  snow. 
Beck.  Others  had  now  joined  them,  Beck  among  the 

rest ;  and  after  nearly  six  years,  their  journal 
recorded  one  man  who  asked  them  to  repeat 
what  the  first  minister  had  taught  them  about 
God.  There  were  one  or  two  who  said  they 
would  have  no  objection  to  conversion  if  it  were 
not  so  difficult ;  and  they  learned  that  in  Europe 
they  were  a  laughing-stock,  and  the  butt  for 
witty  ridicule,  classical  and  unclassical.  "  My 
soul  is  often  in  a  flame  when  they  mock  my 
God,"  Stach  writes  ;  "  however,  the  children  all 
love  me."  There  was  at  last  the  dawn  of  a 
better  day. 

As  Beck  was  sitting  in  his  tent  in  the  summer 
of  1738,  writing  a  translation  of  the  Gospels,  a 
band  of  savages  from  the  south  entered.      As 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  1 33 

inquisitive  and  mysterious  as  children,  they 
asked  timidly  what  he  did,  and  how  the  book 
could  speak  ?  He  told  them  of  the  creation  of 
the  world,  and  the  happiness  of  God,  and  of  sin 
and  immortality.  They  listened  with  a  stare. 
He  told  them  of  God's  Son,  who  came  down 
from  heaven  to  save  men  ;  of  His  love  and 
sufferings,  and  the  message  that  He  left.  They 
drew  closer  to  the  table  and  were  very  still  ;  and 
when  he  took  up  the  manuscript  before  him  and 
read  the  story  of  the  Passion,  one  of  them 
stepped  forward  and  said,  greatly  moved,  "  How  The  first 
was  that  ?  tell  me  that  again  ;  for  fain  would  ^'^^^• 
I  be  saved."  With  the  tears  running  down  his 
cheeks  at  this  unexpected  speech,  Beck  went 
over  the  story  with  still  more  emphasis,  and 
when  his  brethren  returned,  they  found  him  in 
the  centre  of  an  eager  and  agitated  group.  The 
man  went  away  to  tell  his  little  son,  but  soon 
returned  and  stayed  all  night ;  came  again  and 
again,  and  at  last  lived  in  the  Mission  House. 
After  instruction  and  proof,  he  was  baptised,  and 
proved  a  most  faithful  evangelist. 

Kayarnak  was  the  first  fruits  of  a  plentiful 
harvest.  The  Southeners  came  in  crowds  about 
the    mission.        The     preaching     was    entirely 


134  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

changed,  the  sufferings  and  atonement  of  our 
Lord  being  chiefly  set  forth,  one  baptism 
followed  another,  and  from  the  middle  of  the 
last  century,  the  history  of  the  Greenland  mission 
is  the  history  of  a  settled  Christian  Church. 

Of  the  three  men  who  had  taken  up  Egede's 
work,  and  carried  it  to  the  point  where  the 
mission  and  the  Church  became  one,  Matthew 
Stach  was  spared  the  longest.  No  one  had 
been  so  active  in  the  mission.  Six  times  he  had 
journeyed  to  Europe  to  raise  up  friends  and 
cheer  the  Church  with  reports  of  what  he  had 
seen  and  heard.  He  had  visited  America,  and 
brought  news  to  New  Herrnhut  of  the  missions 
among  the  Red  Indians.  He  had  been  in 
London  on  fruitless  efforts  to  reach  Labrador 
and  carry  the  Gospel  there.  He  had  sailed  up 
and  down  the  coast  searching  for  stations  in 
which  to  build,  and  preaching  everywhere,  and 
the  last  effort  he  made  was,  when  he  was  grey- 
headed, and  set  out  on  an  expedition  to  the 
south  which  was  to  last  a  year,  and  was  more 
suited  to  the  adventurousness  of  youth.  Shortly 
before  he  left,  Beck  reminded  him  of  the  past. 
"  We  two  alone  are  left,"  he  wrote,  "  Boehmisch 
fell  asleep  seven  years  ago.     It  was  we  three  who 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  1 35 

made  the  covenant  in  1735.  Many  a  time,  you 
remember,  we  begged  with  tears  for  but  one  soul 
out  of  all  this  nation,  and  now  God  has  not  only 
quickened  five  hundred  to  Himself,  but  there 
are  still  five  hundred  in  New  Herrnhut,  and  nigh 
three  hundred  here  at  Lichtenfels." 

The  Gospel  had  been  firmly  and  visibly  intro- 
duced into  Greenland,  and  Egede  was  spared  to 
know  that  he  had  not  left  his  Norway  parsonage 
in  vain. 

I  have  but  hinted  at  the  work  done  by  these  Moravian 
noble  Moravians.  Once  the  mission  fire  caught  "^^^^^°"^- 
hold  of  them,  it  never  ceased  to  burn.  They 
went  to  Labrador,  to  Central  and  South 
America,  among  the  Red  Indians,  to  every 
coast  of  Africa,  into  the  heart  of  Asia,  up  to  the 
shores  of  the  Arctic  Ocean.  Every  road  they 
took  was  marked  by  the  same  quiet  sacrifice  of 
self,  the  same  heroic  faith.  Dober's  words  are 
still  the  inspiration  of  brave  hearts  : 

"  I  determined,  if  only  one  brother  would  go 
with  me  to  the  West  Indies,  I  would  give  myself 
up  to  be  a  slave,  and  would  say  to  the  slaves  as 
much  of  the  Saviour  as  I  knew  myself  I  leave 
it  in  the  hands  of  the  congregation,  and  have  no 
other  reason  for  going  than  that  there  are  souls 


136  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

in  the  Island  that  cannot  beheve  because  they 
have  not  heard." 
Volunteers  to       Three  days  afterwards,  in  the   grey  summer 

St.  Thomas.        ,  ,  ^  1     -i        1  r  tt 

dawn,  three  ngures  moved  silently  out  01  Herrn- 
hut.  They  were  David  Nitschmann,  carpenter  ; 
Leonhard  Dober,  potter ;  and  Nicolas  Zinzen- 
dorf,  Count,  and  once  Knight  of  the  Order  of 
the  Seed  Corn.  Staff  in  hand,  the  two  mission- 
aries set  their  faces  northwards  ;  staff  in  hand 
and  little  else ;  the  congregation  allowed  each  of 
them  nine  shillings,  and  Zinzendorf,  at  the  village 
where  he  parted  from  them,  added  a  ducat  apiece. 
They  were  told  to  be  guided  in  everything  by 
the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  then  left  to  make 
out  that  long  road  of  six  hundred  miles  to 
Copenhagen.  There,  Lord  Chamberlain  Von 
Pless,  asked,  "  How  will  you  manage  in  St. 
Thomas  ?  "  "  We  will  be  slaves,  and  work  with 
the  negroes."  "That  is  impossible;  as  white 
men  you  will  not  be  allowed."  "  Then,"  said 
Nitschmann,  "  I  am  a  carpenter  and  will  live 
by  my  trade."  "  Fairly  and  good  ;  but  what  will 
the  potter  do  ?  "  "  He  can  help  me  and  I  will 
help  to  support  him."  "  If  that  is  your  spirit, 
you  can  go  anywhere  in  the  world." 

Still  we  hear   the  homely,  noble   answer,  as 


STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING.  1 37 

Zinzendorf  sends  for  one  of  those  simple  people 
and  says,  "  Will  you  go  to  Greenland  to-morrow 
as  a  missionary  ?  "  "If  the  shoemaker  can  finish 
the  boots  that  I  have  ordered  of  him  by  to- 
morrow, I  will  go." 

They  sought  out  those  that  others  would  pass 
by,  the  lowly  and  smaller  races  lying  worn  out 
and  unnoticed  beside  the  broad  highways  of  the 
world  ;  the  lepers  that  no  one  else  would  tend  ; 
the  tribes  that  were  fenced  in  by  barriers  that 
no  one  else  would  cross.  Those  on  whom  they 
lavished  their  devotion  were  not  even  among  the 
permanent  races  of  the  world.  They  were  often 
not  only  slender  in  bulk,  numbering  about  the 
population  of  a  tenth-rate  town  in  India,  but 
they  were  vanishing,  either  before  the  inroad  of 
the  stronger  races,  or  sinking  into  decay  from 
some  subtle  cause. 

There  are  many  who  have  said  with  Mr. 
Trollope  :  "  The  game  is  not  worth  the  candle, 
for  the  race  is  doomed."  To  the  Moravians, 
who  looked  at  the  individual  rather  than  the 
race,  at  the  absence  of  the  Gospel  and  not  at 
the  numbers,  this  consideration  became  a  power- 
ful argument  for  their  activity.  If  these  heathen 
were  to  be  reached  at  all,  there  was  no  time  to 


138  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

lose ;  if  they  were  too  small  to  be  of  weight  in 
the  future  movements  of  the  world,  that  was  just 
the  reason  why  one  should  not  pass  them  by. 
They  may  have  thought  also,  they  may  have 
been  right  in  thinking,  that  there  was  no  neces- 
sary doom  upon  these  weaker  races,  that  what 
they  needed  was  the  vitality  of  Christian  life. 
If  numbering  only  a  few  thousands,  they  might 
roam  over  a  country  larger  than  France  or 
Germany,  and  where  they  were  the  sole  inhabit- 
ants; why  should  they  not  reverse  the  doom 
that  men  were  ready  to  fix  upon  them^  and 
multiply  and  replenish  even  that  uncongenial 
earth  ?  The  weaker  races  have  not  always  gone 
to  the  wall.  The  white  trader,  with  white  brandy, 
white  vice,  and  white  covetousness  was  working 
to  that  end  ;  but  there  are  instances  already, 
where  the  introduction  of  Christianity  has 
checked  the  decline  of  population.  There,  at 
anyrate,  these  Moravians  face  us  in  unbroken 
lines  of  heroism,  of  daring,  of  an  incredible 
activity.  Within  five  years  they  began  as  many 
foreign  missions,  within  four-and-twenty  they 
had  started  eighteen  more. 
TheMoravians  Wilberforce  was  scarcely  exaggerating  when 
honoured.        ^^   ^^j^^  ^^^^^   ^^   ^   ^^^^  ^^    Christians,   they 


STRUGGLING   BUT    PREVAILING.  1 39 

excelled  all  mankind  in  solid  and  unequivocal 
proofs  of  the  love  of  Christ  Chalmers  may 
have  only  anticipated  or  formulated  the  aspira- 
tion of  other  men  as  great  of  soul  as  he,  when 
he  wrote,  "  Who  would  not  long  to  be  in  pos- 
session of  the  charm  by  which  they  wrought? 
Who  would  not  willingly  exchange  for  it  all  the 
parade  of  human  eloquence,  and  all  the  confid- 
ence of  human  argument." 

Their  line  of  light  and  life  flows  through  a 
dreary  century.  It  loses  nothing  by  the  dreary 
waste  of  Church  life — or  far  more  Church  death 
— through  which  it  passes.  It  is  luminous  with 
sacrifice,  with  self  effacement,  with  martyrdoms, 
and  all  wrought  only  that  Christ  might  touch  the 
heathen  with  His  Gospel.  I  question  if  in  that 
century  there  are  any  figures  that  will  afterwards 
show  more  radiant,  more  Christ-like,  more  in- 
spiring, than  those  of  the  homely  men  and 
women  who  went  out  in  a  ceaseless  beautiful 
procession,  more  than  2000  strong,  from  quiet 
simple  Herrnhut,  and  from  the  heart  of  a 
community  that  never  exceeded  70,000  souls. 
I  question  if  there  was  ever  a  spirit  more  faith- 
fully transmitted,  illustrated  by  examples  more 
lofty   and    sustained,   than    that    inspiring    the 


140  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

broad  words  which  Zinzendorf  wrote,  and  which, 
for  a  century  and  a-half,  the  people  have  Hterally 
kept :  "  The  whole  earth  is  the  Lord's.  Men's 
souls  are  all  His.     I  am  debtor  to  all." 

Having  traced  these  two  streams  to  their 
junction  on  the  threshold  of  our  century,  each 
bearing  on  its  waters  the  light  and  love  of  God, 
we  must  return  to  where  we  broke  off. 

So  far  as  we  have  followed  the  missions  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  they  have  been  confined 
to  the  Eskimo,  the  Red  Indian,  and  the  Negro. 
Von  Westen  had  left  his  Danish  parish,  and  in 
brave  fashion  had  pushed  up  into  Finnland ; 
he  had  found  faint  and  decaying  Christian 
beHefs  struggling  for  a  bare  existence  in  the 
atmosphere  of  a  vigorous  paganism,  and  he  had 
rallied  them  with  such  conspicuous  success  that 
his  memory  is  still  cherished  as  that  of  the 
Apostle  of  the  Lapps.  Egede  had  left  his  parish 
in  Norway,  and  in  Greenland  had  begun  a 
mission  which  must  compel  the  admiration  of 
all  who  honour  the  supreme  efforts  of  a  heroic 
spirit.  The  splendours  of  his  faith,  and  the 
devotion  of  his  wife  make  a  pathetic  picture  as 
we  watch  those  solitary  figures  against  their 
background   of    frozen    snow,   and   recall    their 


STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING.  I4I 

years  of  disappointed  toil.  Ehrhardt,  sailing  as 
supercargo  of  a  merchant  ship  up  to  Labrador, 
had  begun  a  mission  there,  "  moved,"  he  says, 
"  by  an  amazing  affection  for  those  northern 
countries."  Brave  hearts  had  felt  for  the  negro 
slaves  of  the  West  Indies,  and  there,  and  on  the 
northern  coast  of  South  America,  the  mission 
churches  rose  up  through  fever  mists,  and  among 
the  shadows  of  death.  Schmidt,  fresh  from  the 
chains  of  the  Spielberg,  had  ventured  out  to 
Africa  to  be  for  six  years  the  first  and  only 
missionary  to  the  Hottentots.  Moravians,  with 
nothing,  but  the  clothing  on  their  backs,  had 
found  their  way  to  the  Polar  Sea,  and  to  that 
Greenland  heart  where  Egede  had  knocked  in 
vain.  Moravians  had  also  taken  up  the  task 
which  John  Eliot  and  the  Mayhews  had  begun, 
and  the  red  man  of  North  America  learned  from 
them  of  the  white  man's  God, 

This  movement  of  a  hundred  years  upon  Moravian 
heathendom  assumes  no  large  proportions.  ^P°s^^^s- 
Most  of  the  slender  forces  proceeded  from  a 
single  point,  and  an  obscure  hamlet  in  Saxony 
furnished  the  inspirations  and  the  labours  of  a 
century.  There  never  were  braver  acts  wrought 
by  the  apostles  of  Christ  in  any  age.     A  succes- 


142  STRUGGLING    BUT    PRE:VAILING. 

sion  of  men  of  the  finest  spiritual  type  flung 
their  shadows  in  that  dull  century  of  common- 
place, and  scarcely  more  observed  than  shadows, 
they  seemed  to  pass  away.  There  were  perhaps 
50,000  Eskimo  in  Greenland  and  Labrador, 
and  when  our  present  century  began,  there  may 
have  been  three  or  four  thousand  of  them 
attending  Christian  worship.  They  belonged  to 
the  type  for  which  Mr.  Max  Miiller  has  found 
the  name  of  unprogressive  savage.  A  people 
thrust  out,  as  he  suggests,  to  the  moral  and 
geographical  extremities  of  the  world.  The  red 
man  was  of  a  higher  spirit,  but  he  belonged  to 
the  same  religious  group,  and  he  may  have  owed 
his  less  stunted  nature,  as  well  as  his  higher 
physique,  to  the  climate  and  soil  of  a  less  rigor- 
ous region.  Where  the  Eskimo  ended,  the  red 
man  began,  roaming  over  the  vast  prairies  and 
woods  that  stretched  from  perpetual  ice  down  to 
Mexico,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  ; 
a  population  numbering  not  more  than  three  or 
four  millions,  in  a  territory  that  might  support 
six  hundred,  and  doomed,  like  other  populations 
of  the  same  type,  to  melt  slowly  off  that  earth 
which  they  would  neither  till  nor  subdue ;  yet, 
together  with   their   northern    neighbours,  they 


STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILINCi.  1 43 

represented  half  a  continent,  and  to  them  also 
the  mission  had  brought  the  good  news,  and 
there  were  perhaps  10,000  of  them  who  met  for 
Christian  worship. 

The  slaves  of  the  West  Indies  were  the 
negroes  of  Africa,  the  fruit  of  that  awful  and 
incarnate  selfishness  that  stamped  the  blot  of  the 
slave  trade  on  the  fame  of  Christian  England,  a 
hideous  iniquity  that  reached  its  height  while 
the  century  ran  out  its  course,  and  that  sacrificed 
fifty  millions  of  human  lives  on  the  altar  of  a 
lawless  gain.  Patient  Moravian  love — patient 
unto  death — was  teaching  hymns  of  faith  to 
these  helpless  children  of  the  sun,  and  was  pre- 
paring the  way  for  that  cry  of  an  outraged 
conscience  that  was  to  utter  itself  at  last  in  the 
Act  of  Emancipation. 

Such  as  they  were,  however,  we  are  met  by  No  English 
the  unexpected  fact  that  not  one  of  these  '^^ission. 
missions  was  English.  The  names,  the  pro- 
moters are  all  German,  Danish,  Norwegian. 
Britain,  long  since  the  foremost  figure  in  the 
modern  mission,  had  as  yet  made  no  sign,  and 
the  traces  of  any  interest  then  in  the  conversion 
of  the  world  must  be  sought  for  in  a  few  private 
letters,  in  the  featureless  records  of  one  or  two 


144  STRUGGLING   BUT   PREVAILING. 

Societies  that  had  no  public  favour,  in  some 
sentences  scattered  through  the  writings  of  a  few- 
divines,  and  in  the  brief  flashes  of  sympathy  that 
stole  across  a  few  minds  like  Butler,  Berkeley, 
Whitfield,  or  Wesley.  Bishop  Butler,  in  sketch- 
ing that  noble  ideal  of  a  virtuous  state  in  which 
he  anticipates  the  glory  and  the  ambition  of  the 
Christian  mission,  shows  how  the  mission  be- 
comes a  supreme  work  of  mercy,  and  that  even 
on  humanitarian  grounds  it  is  impossible  to 
avoid  or  postpone  it  But  I  wish  to  rest  it  on  a 
more  solid  and  Divine  foundation. 
Bishop  A  comrade  of  Butler's  caught  the  spirit  of  the 

Berkeley,  mission,  and  resolved  to  realise  it  in  the  islands 
of  the  West.  We  may  not  remember  so  well 
as  the  touching  episode  deserves,  that  the  san- 
guine, impetuous  Bishop  of  Cloyne,  the  brilliant 
prophet  of  Idealism,  the  friend  of  Swift  and 
Arbuthnot  and  Pope,  became  himself  a  mission- 
ary after  a  fashion. 

"  It  is  now  about  ten  months,"  Berkeley  wrote 
in  1723,  "since  I  have  determined  to  spend  the 
residue  of  my  days  in  Bermuda,  where  I  trust  in 
Providence  that  I  may  be  the  mean  instrument 
of  doing  great  good  to  mankind."  In  Bermuda 
he  would  "found  a  college  where  the  English 


STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILING.  I45 

youth  of  our  plantations  may  be  educated  in 
such  sort  as  to  supply  their  Church  with  pastors 
of  good  morals  and  good  learning."  In  the  same 
seminary  he  would  "  educate  a  number  of  young 
American  savages,  that  they  may  become  the  fit- 
test instruments  for  spreading  religion,  morals, 
and  civil  life  among  their  countrymen."  He 
threw  himself  into  the  plan  with  an  extraordin- 
ary ardour.  Swift  wrote  good-humouredly  :  "  He 
has  seduced  several  of  the  hopefullest  young 
clergymen  and  others  here,  many  of  them  well 
provided  for,  and  all  in  the  fairest  way  for  pre- 
ferment." 

When  he  went  to  London  to  ask  for  help,  the 
subscriptions  soon  reached  ^^5000,  and  Sir  Robert 
Walpole,  the  minister  of  the  day,  was  among  the 
subscribers.  The  members  of  the  Scriblerus 
Club  met  him  at  dinner,  and  rallied  him  about 
his  plan  ;  but,  when  he  had  begged  to  be  heard 
in  his  turn,  they  were  struck  dumb,  and,  after 
some  pause,  rose  all  up  together,  exclaiming 
with  real  earnestness,  "  Let  us  set  out  with  him 
immediately;"  and,  in  1729,  in  his  prime,  sinking 
his  deanery  and  all  else  in  the  one  ambition, 
presenting  his  newly  married  wife  with  a  spin- 
ning wheel  since  she  goes  with  great  thankfulness 


146  STRUGGLING    BUT   PREVAILING. 

to  live  a  plain  farmer's  life,  he  sailed  out  with 
his  party  in  a  hired  ship  of  250  tons,  and  after 
what  he  calls  a  long  time  blundering  about  the 
ocean,  landed  in  Newport,  in  Rhode  Island. 
He  never  went  farther.  The  support  on  which 
he  had  counted  from  home  dissolved  as  soon  as 
the  charm  of  his  eagerness  was  withdrawn  across 
Disappoint-  the  Atlantic.  In  173 1  he  returned  to  London, 
^^^^'  disappointed  but  not  disenchanted,  and  feeling 

that  others  would  better  carry  forward  the 
mission  he  had  proposed,  although  none  could 
bring  to  it  a  purer  or  more  chivalrous  spirit. 

Of  the  mission  we  may  say  to-day  in  the 
nervous  and  prophetic  verse  with  which  it  kindled 
and  inspired  him — 

"  The  first  four  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day  ; 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last." 

John  Wesley.  These  transitory  missionary  impulses  find 
another  curious  illustration.  Four  years  after 
Berkeley's  return,  an  Englishman  was  tempted  to 
cross  the  Atlantic  on  a  similar  mission.  Ogle- 
thorpe asked  John  Wesley  to  go  out  as  a 
missionary  to  Georgia,  and  Wesley  declined, 
saying  that  he  was  the  staff  of  his  mother's  age, 


STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING.  147 

her  support  and  her  comfort.  "  Had  I  twenty 
sons,"  the  brave  woman  replied,  "  I  should  rejoice 
that  they  were  so  employed,  although  I  never 
saw  them  more."  So  he  went  out  in  a  cloud 
of  romance,  believing  that  he  would  find  the 
Indians  "as  little  children,  humble,  willing  to 
learn,  and  eager  to  do  the  will  of  God,"  and  after 
two  years  he  also  returned,  the  cloud  having  left 
only  the  chill  of  disappointment,  and  his  com- 
plaint being  that  the  real  Indians  were  "liars, 
gluttons,  drunkards,  thieves,  dissemblers,  impla- 
cable, unmerciful,  murderers  of  fathers,  murderers 
of  their  own  children." 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  this  was  False  ideals, 
just  the  discovery  he  needed,  if  he  were  to  be  a 
missionary  at  all  ;  but  it  was  not  the  spirit  of 
Paul  that  led  that  generation  to  the  West,  but 
the  yearning  for  a  false  ideal,  where  savage  life 
would  mean  only  a  picture  of  sweet  Arcadian 
simplicity.  There  is  still  one  direction  which  the  India  remains, 
mission  took,  and  of  which  I  have  said  nothing — 
the  beginning  of  the  largest  influence  which  the 
Church  of  the  Reformation  has  exercised  on 
pagan  thought,  of  that  bright  and  broadening 
river  the  streams  of  which  already  make  glad 
many  a  Hindu  home,  and  which  we  can  trace 


148  STRUGGLING    BUT    PREVAILING. 

back  to  where  it  began,  in  a  tiny  silver  thread, 
as  we  cross  the  threshold  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

There  is  one  country  that  has  been  able  to 
cast  its  spell  over  three  millenniums.  India  still 
attracts  the  ambitions,  the  soldiery,  and  the 
rulers  of  the  West,  and  India  attracted  the  forces 
of  the  Church  while  the  Church  was  young. 

In  our  next  lecture  we  shall  turn  thither, 
feeling  instinctively  that  we  have  then  reached 
the  greatest  enterprise  and  the  hardest  struggle 
in  which  the  Church  of  God  has  yet  engaged  ; 
and  as  the  sweep  of  Divine  providence  brings 
the  conflict  nearer,  and  knits  the  forces  of  the 
little  Christian  army,  we  feel  already  something 
of  the  awe  and  suspense  that  are  inseparable 
from  the  collision  of  such  powers.  We  shall 
watch  the  modern  planting  of  the  Gospel  there, 
and  stay  by  it  till  we  can  make  sure  that  it  is 
rooted  in  the  soil,  and  until,  having  observed  the 
modifying  influence  of  Christianity  upon  Hindu- 
ism, we  may  perhaps  be  able  to  answer  the 
question,  "Will  the  Gospel  conquer  India?" 


IV. 

THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 


IV. 

THE  CONQUEST  OF  INDIA. 

At  the  death  of  Ziegenbalg,  the  founder  of  the 
German  mission  in  India,  the  result  of  his 
labours  would  be  represented  by  a  few  hundred 
converts,  and  by  much  manly,  honest,  and 
impetuous  work  at  the  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  the  creation  of  a  Christian  literature. 

Under  his  successors  it  continued  to  expand, 
responding,  as  the  mission  always  does,  with  a 
quick  sensitiveness  to  the  greater  or  less  devotion 
of  its  missionaries ;  on  the  whole  well  served, 
though  slenderly.  The  sympathy  of  Denmark  Danish  syi 
never  went  beyond  the  circle  of  the  royal  family.  P^^^-'' 
Ziegenbalg  had  passed  through  England,  and 
he  had  written,  "  I  trust  that  England  will  now 
unite  with  other  Protestant  States  of  Europe  to 
convert  the  heathen  from  darkness  to  light." 
There  were  warm  letters  from  our  Georgian 
kings  and  from  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 


152  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

circulating  translations  of  the  missionary's  letters, 
and  there  was  a  collection  now  and  then,  pro- 
ducing little  but  wonder  that  it  should  be  made. 
For  the  first  fifty  years  the  mission  depended 
for  its  support,  for  money  as  well  as  men,  on 
Halle.  Its  existence  was  a  noble  tribute  to  the 
spirit  of  faith  and  eager  love  in  which  it  had 
been  born  ;  but  Halle  alone  could  not  supply 
the  increasing  demands  of  an  increasing  mission, 
and  the  Halle  fountain  itself  was  running  dry. 
In  the  latter  half  of  the  century,  the  support, 
such  as  it  was,  came  as  much  from  England  as 
from  Germany.  The  men  were  few,  seldom 
more  than  three  or  four  upon  the  field  at 
once  ;  and,  with  the  approach  to  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  mission  was  in  its  decline.  Yet 
not  without  having  blossomed  out  in  one  man, 
into  a  beautiful  life,  as  brilliant  and  powerful 
as  we  find  in  any  of  the  centuries  before  him. 
Schwartz.  While  the  swift,  impetuous  life  of  Ziegenbalg 
was  burning  itself  out,  consumed  by  its  own 
passion,  we  are  introduced  to  a  touching  in- 
cident in  the  little  town  of  Sonnenberg  in 
Germany.  A  Christian  woman  lay  there  dying  : 
before  she  passed  away,  she  drew  her  husband  to 
her  side  and  told  him  that  she  had  dedicated  their 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  1 53 

youngest  child  to  God,  and  she  charged  him  to 
forward  any  leaning  to  the  ministry  that  he 
might  discover  in  the  boy.  The  lad  went  to 
school  and  college,  and  at  last  we  find  him  as 
a  young  student  in  Halle,  lodging  in  Francke's 
Orphan  House.  He  had  been  impressed  by 
a  book  of  the  presiding  genius  there,  was 
acknowledged  already  as  a  man  of  learning  and 
promise,  and  was  daily  coming  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Pietism  and  the  mission.  For,  lodg- 
ing in  the  same  house  with  him,  there  was  one 
Schulze,  fresh  from  the  India  mission,  come 
home  to  see  the  Tamul  Scriptures  through  the 
press  ;  and  so  swaying  the  young  heart  by  his 
enthusiasm,  that  Christian  Frederick  Schwartz 
told  his  father  that  he  too  must  go  to  India  ; 
whereupon  his  father  asked  three  days  to  con- 
sider (for  he  was  his  youngest  son)  and  withdrew 
much  into  that  chamber  that  was  still  hallowed 
by  his  wife's  death ;  from  which  he  finally 
came  down,  with  a  face  bright  as  from  the 
presence  of  the  Lord,  gave  the  lad  his  blessing, 
and  bade  him  depart  as  his  Master's  messenger 
to  the  heathen.  Upon  this  there  followed  busy 
days.  Schwartz  studying  Tamul  with  the 
missionary,  and   having  "such  freedom   in  the 


154  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

language"  that  he  could  expound  the  Gospel 
of  John  in  it  before  he  left  the  university : 
and  then  the  long  voyage  to  India,  where  he 
preached  his  first  sermon  to  the  people  within 
four  months  of  landing,  and  so  plunged  into 
patient,  faithful,  but  not  noticeable  labour ; 
merging  that  strong,  noble  character  of  his 
in  the  common  work  of  his  comrades  for 
sixteen  years.  And  then,  when  the  time  came, 
standing  out  clear  from  all, —  to  Christian 
thought  and  the  history  of  the  Church,  perhaps 
the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  India  of  that 
eighteenth  century.  It  was  not  only  the  mission 
that  advanced  with  almost  rapid  strides  while 
this  bright,  pleasant-faced,  low-sized  man  went 
eagerly  from  place  to  place :  his  journeys  often 
like  Ziegenbalg's,  on  foot ;  his  spirit  unresting ; 
his  preaching  and  speaking  incessant ;  congrega- 
tions (such  as  they  were)  gathered  in  everywhere. 
But  he  seemed  to  all  men  so  complete  an 
embodiment  of  what  he  taught,  and  his  devotion 
and  unselfishness,  his  quickness  to  seize  each 
passing  chance,  and  the  nameless  fascination 
that  some  natures  wield  over  others,  so  distinct, 
that,  wherever  he  went,  men  reposed  in  him  a 
boundless   confidence.     The  Rajah  of  Tanjore, 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  1 55 

an   indolent  Akbar  in  his  way,  made   him,  on 
his  deathbed,  the  guardian  of  his  adopted  child. 

Hyder  Ali,  the  scourge  of  the  Carnatic,  the  Hyder  AH  on 
man  who  let  down  upon  the  plains  of  Southern  Schwartz. 
India  a  storm  of  war  and  woe,  the  like  of  which 
no  eye  had  seen  and  no  tongue  could  tell,  made 
but  one  overture  to  the  rulers  of  Madras  :  "  Send 
me  Schwartz,  send  me  the  Christian  missionary, 
for  him  only  can  I  trust."  And  so,  through 
years  of  storm  and  carnage,  we  see  this  simple- 
minded,  simple  -  living  Christian  missionary 
becoming  a  political  power  for  the  time,  sent 
on  critical  embassies  between  contending  armies 
because  it  is  safe  for  no  other  man  to  go, 
administering  a  whole  province,  and  writing 
elaborate  State  minutes  upon  the  collection  of 
revenue  and  the  procedure  of  justice,  and  turned 
back  by  no  danger  from  any  work  to  which 
he  had  set  his  hand  ;  yet  never  pausing  in  his 
work  of  preaching  Jesus  Christ,  and  opening 
stations,  and  training  native  workers,  and  caring 
for  the  neglected  soldiers,  and  building  shelters 
for  the  orphan,  and  laying  up,  like  Joseph,  large 
provision  for  the  years  of  famine — plain,  un- 
pretending figure,  clad  in  black  dimity,  and 
found  everywhere  with  ministering  hand  where 


156  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

sorrow,  suffering,  or  need  called  him,  leaving  a 
memory  more  pure  and  enduring  than  even 
the  beautiful  memorial,  wrought  by  Flaxman, 
and  placed  by  the  grateful  Rajah  in  that  Tan- 
jore  to  which  he  had  brought  the  blessings  of 
Christ  and  His  good-will  to  men. 

With  the  death  of  Schwartz,  the  brilliant 
missionary  prelude  of  the  eighteenth  century 
may  be  said  to  close.  It  was  heroic  and 
beautiful  the  most  of  it ;  but,  as  the  older  spirit 
faded  out,  lesser  men  came  forward — dull, 
pedantic,  without  enthusiasm.  It  suffered  from 
End  of  Danish  vagueness.  It  was  not  Danish  nor  German 
impetus.  ^^^  English,  but  all  three  together  ;  and  having 

served  its  purpose,  it  seemed  almost  to  pass 
quietly  away.  It  had  helped  to  keep  up  a 
missionary  spirit  during  a  century  that  was 
unresponsive  to  that  as  to  much  else  that  was 
Divine ;  it  had  given  to  the  world  men  whose 
lives  will  always  be  an  inspiration ;  but  it  had 
not  built  up  a  native  Church,  nor,  indeed  built 
anything  that  did  not  speedily  crumble  away. 
The  town  where  Ziegenbalg  landed  still  lies  by 
the  sea,  silent,  lonely,  and  deserted ;  the  square 
where  Ziegenbalg  stood,  the  streets  he  trod, 
have  been  devoured  by  the  encroaching  waves ; 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  1 57 

a  place  of  dreams  and  shadows  now,  and  that 
has  long  since  transferred  its  importance,  and 
even  its  population  to  other  centres.  I  have 
not  anywhere  seen  a  spot  of  so  great  memories 
so  weirdly  changed.  And  as  with  the  town  so 
it  fared  with  the  mission,  but  not  without  the 
old  order  giving  place  to  the  new,  while  God 
fulfilled  Himself  in  many  ways.  For,  if  it 
decayed  within  its  original  limits,  it  had 
already  been  swept  far  beyond  them  by  the 
zeal  of  its  brave  messengers ;  away  down  to 
Tinnevelly  in  the  south,  where  there  sprang  from 
it  (but  under  English  auspices)  the  most  power- 
ful mission  in  India ;  up  to  Madras,  and  even 
Calcutta  in  the  north,  where  it  kept  the  ground 
under  difficulties  which  will  become  plainer  as 
we  follow  another  of  these  thin  lines,  along 
which  the  providence  of  God  may  sometimes 
work  for  centuries,  but  always  to  large  and 
gracious  ends. 

Denmark,  we   have   seen,  was   not   the  only  Dutch  settlers, 
country  with  an  East  India  Company.      There  and  English 
were    others     earlier    in    the    field,     of    which 
Portugal  has  been  mentioned  already,  and  after 
Portugal,  there  came  the  Dutch  and  the  English. 
Those  who  formed  these  settlements    lived   in 


158  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

an  age  when  the  rehgious  Hfe  was  strong. 
They  may  have  been  badly  served,  and  in  later 
times  they  caught  the  spirit  of  their  fellows  ;  but 
a  curious  missionary  tenor  pervades  their  first 
instructions.  They  write  to  Madras  that  it  is 
"  their  earnest  desire  to  propagate  the  Gospel." 
They  commission  a  schoolmaster,  and  if  the 
Gentoos  send  their  children  to  him,  they  are  to 
be  taught  gratis.  The  missionary  clause  was 
inserted  in  the  charter  of  1698,  requiring  the 
chaplain  to  apply  himself  to  the  languages  of 
the  country,  so  that  he  might  "instruct  the 
Gentoos  in  the  Protestant  religion."  And  even 
half-a-century  after,  the  missionaries  at  Madras 
were  to  receive  certain  moneys  to  be  spent  in 
propagating  their  faith. 

That  spirit,  however,  faded  out  at  home.  It 
had  scarcely  existed  abroad.  Commerce  and 
its  gain  were  the  absorbing  passion  of  these 
little  knots  of  Englishmen,  and  any  higher 
motive  ceased  to  influence  them.  The  trader 
adopted  some  of  the  worst  features  of  Oriental 
life,  and  then  sunk  the  Christian  name  he 
bore  steadfastly  out  of  sight.  "We  looked  no 
further,"  they  said  themselves,  "  than  the  advan- 
tages to  our  trade,"  and  they  boldly  add  what 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  159 

we  to-day  disclaim  as  a  libel  upon  a  multitude 
of  honest  men,  "We  sought  these  advantages  with 
the  ingenuity  and  the  selfishness  of  merchants." 
There  was  no  church  in  Calcutta  for  eighty 
years,  and  such  service  as  there  was,  was  held  in 
a  private  house.  When  the  common  practice 
of  the  civilian  was  to  acquire  seraglios ;  when 
eight  races  were  sometimes  run  on  a  single 
Sabbath  at  Chinsurah ;  when  deputy-governors 
had  drinking  parties  during  the  hours  of  Divine 
service ;  when  the  card-table  and  the  nautch 
were  frequented  on  Sunday  afternoons  ;  w^hen 
the  only  recognition  of  the  day  was  the  hoisting 
of  a  flag ;  when  a  lady  could  give  as  a  valid 
reason  for  never  entering  a  church  during 
twelve  years,  that  no  gentleman  had  offered  to 
escort  her ;  when  one  of  the  oldest  and  best 
inhabitants  of  Calcutta  could  say  that  he  was 
not  sure  he  could  produce  ten  righteous  men  in 
the  city,  but  he  thought  he  could  procure  five  ; 
when,  outside  the  capital,  there  was  no  assembly 
for  religious  worship,  nor  any  evidence  that 
Englishmen  had  even  a  religious  instinct ;  and 
when  any  occasional  attendance  at  church,  if 
church  there  was,  could  be  mentioned  with  a 
fierce  contempt ;  when  the  natives  could  speak 


in 


Hinduism. 


1 60  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

of  the   Christian   religion   as   devil    religion — it 
was  not  wonderful  that  the  life  of  the  Presidency 
towns   produced  little  change  for  the  better  in 
the  life  of  the  Hindu. 
Ideas  regard-        The  bare  suggestion  of  touching  the  religion 
of  the  people  was  met  with  alarm  and  surprise. 
A    process    had    gone    on,    which    Sir    James 
Mackintosh    aptly    called,    "  Brahmanising    the 
European."     Hinduism  was  a  religious  prejudice 
which  was  not  to  be  disturbed.     Religion  was 
considered  an  accident,  like  colour,  or  the  form 
of  the   body,   which    it   was    ridiculous    if    not 
profane  to  alter.     Some  Europeans  had  become 
Hindus,  others  made  it  a  point  of  etiquette  to 
present  offerings  at  idol  shrines.      "There   are 
Directors  of  the    Company,"  Mr.  Grant    wrote, 
"  who  are  indulgent  apologists  of  the  forms  of 
superstition  " — and  little  wonder — for  the  Court 
proposed  to  build  on  the  Ganges  a  temple  that 
would    accommodate  the  traders  from   Thibet ; 
they   had    drawn   up   an    elaborate   scheme   for 
a  college,  where  their  professors  would  teach  the 
various  theologies  of  India  ;  and  the  Supreme 
Council  made  themselves  custodians  of  the  idol 
at  Juggernauth,  and   receivers   of  the   poll-tax 
levied  on  pilgrims  to  that  shrine.     It  would  have 


THE   CONQUEST   OE   INDIA.  l6l 

been  strange  if  in  an  atmosphere  like  this,  the 
faintest  whisper  of  a  missionary  enterprise 
should  have  received  encouragement.  Nothing, 
it  was  declared,  could  be  more  extravagant  than 
the  hope  of  converting  the  natives  ;  directors 
thanked  God  that  such  a  work  was  impractic- 
able. It  w^as  a  wild,  extravagant,  expensive,  and 
unjustifiable  proposal ;  the  Company  had  pledged 
itself  not  to  allow  any  interference  with  the 
natural  religion  of  the  people ;  and  there  were 
some  who  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  they  should 
let  the  Hindu  system  rest  on  the  broad  basis 
of  its  own  merits ;  that  it  exhibited  piety 
and  morality  at  every  turn  ;  and  that,  if  ever 
there  was  an  Arcadia,  it  must  have  been  in 
Hindustan.  It  w^as  openly  affirmed  that  it 
was  monstrous  to  disturb  the  people  in  their 
simple  faith. 

Even  the  Bishop  of  St.  David  questioned  the  A  Bishop's 
right  of  any  people  to  send  their  religion  to  ^^^^^' 
another ;  and  it  was  felt,  with  much  satisfaction, 
that  if  any  occasion  should  arise  when  the 
natives  would  need  a  purer  religion,  the 
Omnipotent  Power  of  Heaven  would  effect  it, 
but  certainly  not  by  missionaries.     If  India  was 

worth    preserving,    it    could    only    be    by    the 

M 


l62  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

immediate  recall  of  every  missionary.  They 
were  dangerous  maniacs  to  be  placed  under 
restraint  ;  a  band  of  devils  would  be  preferable 
to  a  band  of  missionaries  ;  and  even  the  Bible 
Society  was  charged  with  placing  our  posses- 
sions in  the  East  in  the  most  imminent  and 
unprecedented  peril  ;  and  with  surpassing  the 
ingenuity  of  Bonaparte  in  devising  plans  for 
destroying  the  British  Empire  in  India. 

I  have  not  cared  to  keep  the  shadows  out  of 
the  picture  ;  for  if  that  old  Society  seems  dark 
to  us  now,  it  must  have  seemed  darker  to  those 
men,  who,  when  this  century  began,  were 
struggling  with  its  prejudice,  its  timidity,  and  its 
Brahmanised  life,  to  get  a  bare  footing  for  that 
Gospel,  which  the  Christian  opinion  and  the 
statesmen  and  the  rulers  of  to-day  believe  to  be 
for  the  supreme  good  of  India,  and  for  the  most 
lasting  security  to  our  dominions. 

Yet,  let  us  not  take  away  an  impression  that 
Avould  be  unjust  because  it  was  exaggerated. 
The  religious  life  of  those  commercial  settle- 
ments was  certainly  not  likely  to  gain  any 
supremacy  for  Christianity  in  India ;  but  all 
along  those  years  there  was  growing  up  a  quiet 
supremacy  of  the  English  race  that  was  to  make 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  163 

life  and  property  as  safe  in  India  as  in  Britain, 
that  was  to  make  roads  along  which  the  feet  of 
after  missionaries  might  pass  to  every  city — 
a  race  that  was  essentially  Christian,  and  out 
of  which,  through  much  cloud  and  evil,  as 
we  must  all  admit,  there  grew  that  Indian 
Empire  under  English  rule  which  is  the  boast 
and  wonder  of  our  time. 

I  mention  English  rule,  because,  though  other  The  English 
Christian  powers  settled  and  warred  in  India,  ^^^^^" 
none  of  them  has  ruled  it  but  England.  The 
Dutch,  the  Danes,  the  Portuguese,  and  the 
French,  ran  through  all  their  chances  of  oppor- 
tunity. We  find  their  traces  in  the  streets  of 
Galle,  half-buried  by  the  waves  in  Tranquebar, 
in  the  inscriptions  as  of  trading  kings  that  are 
carved  upon  the  pompous  monuments  of  Surat  ; 
in  the  pleasant  alleys  that  lend  the  charm  of 
Europe  to  Pondicherry — but  they  are  the  traces 
of  the  past,  of  powers  that  cling  to  the  land 
though  they  could  not  govern  the  people.  It  is 
little  more  than  a  century  since  English  hands 
caught  the  sceptre  that  was  slipping  from  the 
feeble  grasp  of  the  Moguls.  That  century  can 
speak  for  itself.  The  huge  belt  of  jungle  that 
then  ran  for  1500  miles  below  the  shadows  of 


1 64  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

the  Himalaya  produces  already  eighteen  millions 
a-year,  or  more  than  the  cost  of  defending  our 
Indian  Empire.  The  seas  that  were  swept  by 
pirate  fleets  are  as  safe  as  the  English  Channel. 
Where  camps  of  armed  banditti  overawed  the 
population,  the  country  is  so  quiet  that  two- 
thirds  of  the  people  never  see  the  face  of  a 
soldier.  Bomba}-,  which  Charles  II.  handed 
over  to  some  London  merchants  for  ;^io  per 
annum,  has  twice  the  population  of  Manchester. 
Calcutta,  which,  in  1686,  consisted  of  three 
groups  of  mud  huts,  has  streets  like  the  Chow- 
ringee  Road,  and  enjoys  an  annual  commerce  of 
;^io6,ooo,ooo  sterling.  Villages  have  increased 
their  trade  three  hundred  fold  within  half-a- 
centur}'.  Healthy  and  well-drained  cities  have 
replaced  the  swamps,  and  the  fever ;  native  states, 
whose  history  was  a  weary  record  of  strife,  trade 
quietly  with  each  other,  bound  by  railroads  and 
roads,  the  post,  and  the  telegraph  ;  and  the  coun- 
try, where,  a  hundred  yesn's  ago,  the  husband- 
man raised  no  more  than  enabled  him  to  pay 
the  taxes  and  support  his  family  until  the  next 
harvest,  now  feeds  itself  and  exports  over  and 
above  ;^69,ooo,ooo  sterling. 

I  do  not  wish  to  detract  in  the  least  from  the 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  1 65 

marvel  of  that  advance  or  the  beneficent  char- 
acter of  our  rule.  There  were  many  errors  and 
unrighteousnesses ;  the  policy  was  often  hap- 
hazard and  inconsistent,  the  policy  of  men  who 
would  have  avoided  their  responsibilities  if  they 
could,  and  who  were  often  selfish  and  narrow- 
minded.  The  pride  of  race  made  men  hard, 
even  when  they  were  just,  and  harsh  when  they 
were  unfair.  But,  looking  at  our  government 
of  India  in  the  main,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see 
through  it  purer  instincts  and  a  sense  of  duty 
worthy  of  a  Christian  nation  ;  a  moral  dignity, 
and  in  its  servants  a  moral  bravery  that  repre- 
sents us  at  our  best.  And  in  the  strange  if  not 
unbroken  series  of  pressures  from  without,  by 
which  a  policy  was  being  forced  upon  those  who 
were  unwilling  to  carry  it  into  effect,  that  mysteri- 
ous, and  if  not  Divine,  inexplicable  over-ruling, 
by  which  Great  Britain  has  become  the  mistress 
and  protector  of  India. 

I  have  said  that  the  Tranquebar  missionaries  Kiemander. 
pushed  out  far  beyond  the  natural  limits  of  their 
work,  and  that  one  of  them  reached  Calcutta. 
It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  when 
Kiernander  ventured  there,  driven  by  stress  of 
war  from  his  old   station   of  Cuddalore  in   the 


l66  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

south  ;  and  finding  the  more  favour  from  the 
Factory,  because  he  knew  nothing  of  the  lang- 
uage of  the  people,  but  conducted  all  his  services 
in  that  Portuguese  which  was  a  lingucB  Franca 
round  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  Clive,  who  knew  no 
more  of  the  native  language  than  the  missionary, 
stood  sponsor  for  his  youngest  child,  and  Kier- 
nander's  eagerness,  generosity,  and  unselfishness, 
gained  him  freedom  to  work.  There  were  1200 
communicants  reported  in  his  mission  before  the 
last  decade  of  the  century,  and  the  number  is  no 
doubt  correct ;  but  they  seem  to  have  all  been  of 
the  Eurasian  type,  and  not  to  have  left  much 
mark  on  the  community.  Six  years  after  he  left 
Calcutta,  there  was  not  a  native  Christian,  in  the 
sense  that  we  use  the  word  to-day ;  and  Grant 
was  writing  home  that  "the  labours  of  the 
Mission  Church  have  been  confined  to  the 
descendants  of  Europeans,  and  have  hardly  ever 
embraced  a  single  heathen."  Such  work  as  he 
did  was,  no  doubt,  a  part  of  the  patient  prepara- 
tion which  precedes  the  fulfilment  of  the  plan  of 
God,  and  it  may  have  helped  to  influence  those 
whose  position  helped  to  make  the  effort  possi- 
ble. It  is  at  least  certain  that  Kiernander  fell 
in  with  a  group  of  men,  who,  standing  en  the 


THE   CONQUEST  OF   INDIA.  1 6/ 

threshold  of  the  last  century  as  it  disappeared, 
did  what  they  could  to  make  the  next  a  century 
of  Indian  mission. 

The  chaplains  at  their  Factories  were  neither  Chaplains. 
many  nor  oood.  Up  till  the  eighteenth  century 
there  had  been  only  eighteen  in  all,  and,  con- 
sidering the  quality,  it  was  perhaps  not  desirable 
that  there  should  have  been  more  ;  but  there 
were  exceptions  in  every  Presidency  town,  and 
the  group  of  chaplains  that  were  now  in  Bengal 
made  a  brilliant  exception. 

There  are  few  more  singular  careers  than  that  Claudius 
of  Claudius  Buchanan,  the  son  of  a  Scottish  i^^^^hanan. 
schoolmaster,  and  intended  for  the  Presbyterian 
ministry;  he  conceived  the  idea  of  carving  out  his 
fortune  in  foreign  lands,  and  set  out,  as  has  been 
said,  with  a  lie  and  a  violin  for  his  stock  in  trade. 
Arrived  in  London,  he  was  reduced  to  starvation, 
and,  after  various  wanderings  came  under  the 
spell  of  John  Newton.  His  conversion  led  him 
into  that  circle  of  noble  evangelical  men  who 
formed  at  Clapham  the  centre  of  the  best  Christ- 
ian influence  in  England  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century;  and  from  thence  through  Cambridge,  he 
passed  into  the  chaplaincy  and  into  the  East. 
No  man  served  India  with  a  warmer  or  more 


l68  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

Christ-like  spirit.  To  touch  it  and  penetrate 
it  with  the  Gospel  was  the  great  purpose  of  his 
life  ;  and,  undeterred  by  fever  and  ague,  he  set 
out  in  1806  on  a  tour  of  inquiry  for  persons 
who  might  be  fit  instruments  in  a  new  plan 
that  was  seething  in  his  brain.  As  he  sailed 
out  of  the  harbour,  he  passed  within  sight  of 
another  vessel  sailing  in,  but  all  unconscious 
that  it  had  on  board  one  who  was  to  surpass 
even  him  in  extraordinary  devotion,  and  to 
be  a  bright  particular  star  in  the  history  of 
missions. 
HenryMartyn.  When  Martyn  arrived,  he  was  carried  off  to 
some  like-minded  men  at  Serampore.  Close  by 
the  river  a  small  deserted  idol  temple  was  fitted 
up  as  a  bungalow,  a  place  that  has  since 
become  one  of  the  spots  of  pilgrimage  for 
Christian  India.  Here,  on  the  open  platform 
overhanging  the  river,  he  would  kneel  to  pray 
for  the  people,  and  here  he  writes,  in  that  most 
pathetic  of  all  modern  journals  ;  "  I  lay  in  tears 
interceding  for  the  unfortunate  natives  of  this 
country,  thinking  within  myself,  that  the  most 
despicable  Sudra  of  India  was  of  as  much  value 
in  the  sight  of  God  as  the  king  of  Great 
Britain."     And   here,   later,  he  wrote,   "  I   found 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  169 

my  heaven  begin  on  earth,  no  work  so  sweet  as 
that  of  praying  and  living  wholly  to  the  service 
of  God."  His  labours  were  incessant.  At 
Dinapore  and  Cawnpore,  he  discharged  his 
duties  as  chaplain  with  a  rare  fidelity  ;  and  in 
the  evenings  opened  the  gates  of  his  garden  to 
a  crowd  of  devotees,  beggars,  and  vagrants,  to 
whom  he  read  some  simple  words  of  Scripture. 
A  frightful  crowd,  often  500  in  number,  clothed 
in  rags,  or  without  clothes,  plastered  with  mud, 
and  with  long  matted  locks  of  hair  streaming  to 
their  heels,  every  countenance  foul  and  frightful 
with  evil  passion,  the  lips  black  with  tobacco, 
or  crimson  with  henna.  From  time  to  time 
interrupted  by  low  murmurs  and  hisses,  and 
fierce  cries,  which  would  rise  till  they  drowned 
the  pure  calm  musical  voice ;  but  when  the 
storm  passed,  he  might  be  heard  going  on 
again  where  he  had  left  off,  in  the  same  stead- 
fast tones,  as  if  he  were  incapable  of  interrup- 
tion. 

But,  if  direct  address  failed,  there  was  still  the 
Word  of  God  itself.  The  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  into  Hindustani  was  imperfect ;  that 
of  the  Persian  Scriptures  was  altogether  unsuit- 
able.    It    was    to    remedy   these    defects   that 


170  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

Martyn  bent  all  his  powers,  a  road-breaker  still, 
and  leaving  the  path  once  made  to  be  trodden 
by  other  feet.  With  a  mingled  patience  and 
fervour  that  are  almost  without  parallel,  he 
employed  every  spare  moment  in  this  sacred 
toil,  mastering  one  language  after  another,  and 
giving  himself  absolutely  no  rest.  "  I  felt,"  he 
says,  "  the  cruelty  and  wickedness  of  wasting  a 
moment,  when  so  many  natives  are,  as  it  were, 
waiting  while  I  do  my  work."  He  had  already 
produced  a  Hindustani  version  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  now  he  was  fascinated  with  the  desire  to 
render  them  into  Persian,  "  a  language  that  was 
understood  and  spoken  from  Dinapore  to 
Damascus."  "  So  delightfully  engaged  in 
translation,"  he  writes,  "  the  days  seem  to  have 
passed  like  a  moment.  Never  did  I  see  such 
wonder  and  wisdom  and  love  in  the  blessed 
Book,  as  since  I  have  been  obliged  to  study 
every  expression." 
Jealously  Working,  then,  at  a  white  heat,  unscared  by 
the  howls  and  threatenings  of  the  loathsome 
congregation,  jealously  watched  by  the  Govern- 
ment, lest  by  making  a  convert  he  should  over- 
step the  borders  of  this  easy-going  toleration, 
doing  a  chaplain's  duties  as  few  had  ever  done 


watched. 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  I /I 

them  before,  and  when  others  and  strong  men 
would  have  rested,  turning  to  the  labours  of 
translation,  in  his  unquenched  eagerness  to  put 
the  Scriptures  within  reach  of  the  people,  we 
are  little  surprised  that  consumption  struck  him 
down.  But  illness  only  made  him  more 
feverishly  anxious  to  accomplish  his  great  work, 
and  he  was  literally  dying  when  he  started  for 
Persia,  where  he  spent  a  year  revising  his 
translation  on  the  spot. 

There  is  nothing  grander  in  the  annals  ofMartyn' 
Christianity  than  the  picture  of  Henry  Martyn,  ^^^  ' 
with  the  Bible  in  hand,  alone  and  unsupported 
in  a  strange  country,  challenging  the  whole 
strength  of  Mohammedanism  to  a  conflict. 
Cool,  courageous,  bold  of  spirit,  subtle,  astonish- 
ing the  Mohammedan  doctors  by  his  wisdom, 
gaining  the  confidence  of  all  by  the  gentleness 
of  his  manners,  and  the  blamelessness  of  his 
life.  His  victory  over  the  Mollahs  complete,  he 
journeys  on  from  Shiraz  to  Ispahan  from 
Ispahan  to  Teheran,  from  Teheran  to  Tocat ; 
struggling  onwards,  hoping  to  reach  his  home. 
And  he  did  reach  it — but  it  was  heaven. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  Christian  life  ? 
Is  it  success  ?  or  vulgar  wealth,  or  name  ? 


172  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

Is  it  a  weary  struggle — a  mean  strife 

For  rank,  low  gains,  ambition,  or  for  fame  ? 
^\'hat  sow  we  for  ?  The  world  ?  For  fleeting  time  ? 

Or  far-off  harvests,  richer,  more  sublime  ? 
The  brightest  life  on  earth  was  one  of  loss, 

The  noblest  head  was  wreathed  with  sharpest  thorn. 
Has  He  not  consecrated  pain — the  Cross? 

What  higher  crowns  can  Christian's  brow  adorn  ? 
Be  we  content  to  follow  on  the  road 

Which  men  count  failure,  but  which  leads  to  God. 


Brown  took  up  Kiernander's  work,  when  old 
age  and  many  trials  compelled  him  to  retire  ; 
and,  Yorkshireman  as  he  was,  stuck  to  it  when 
it  cost  him  the  loss  of  the  only  position  that 
brought  him  bread.  These  four  chaplains  may 
not  have  gathered  many  natives  into  the  mission. 
They  were  all  chaplains  first,  and  missionaries 
afterwards;  but  such  a  book  as  "Buchanan's 
Christian  Researches,"  and  such  a  life  as  Henry 
Martyn's  fell  upon  the  Church  at  home  like  an 
inspiration  ;  and  these  four  men  represent  the 
growth  of  a  new  order  of  thought  in  England, 
and  of  those  kindling  ambitions  that  were  yet 
to  issue  in  the  real  conquest  of  India.  For  the 
chaplains  did  not  stand  alone  ;  there  was  a 
missionary  or  two — considered  dangerous,  they 
were  not  allowed  to  live  in  Calcutta,  but  were 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  173 

banished  to  a  Danish  colony.  A  dynamiter  is 
not  more  closely  watched  to-day,  than  those  men 
were  followed,  with  a  jealous  apprehension  and  a 
nameless  dread.  But  they  were  the  van  of  an 
approaching  army,  and  behind  them  there  was 
the  rising  feeling  and  advancing  tide  of  the 
greatest  missionary  epoch  that  the  world  has 
seen. 

There  are  flats  along  our  shores  where  the  Divine  powei. 
receding  waters  leave  interminable  reaches  of 
black,  slimy,  and  unlovely  ooze.  It  might  seem 
a  hopeless  task  to  cover  these  gaunt  spaces  with 
the  clean  leaping  waters.  But  high  up  in  the 
sky  there  rules  a  mighty  force ;  and  without 
hand  or  help  of  man,  and  before  the  evening 
sun,  the  waves  flow  irresistibly  over  the  slush 
and  ooze,  and  the  play  of  waters  fills  the  eye 
with  beauty  and  the  ear  with  music.  It  is  not 
simply  a  hundred  years  ago,  it  is  not  in  India 
only  that  we  see  spiritual  wonders  wrought  with 
the  same  simplicity  of  Divine  power. 

The  dreary  flats  of  unspiritual  centuries, 
the  unlovely  wastes  of  heathenism  cannot 
baffle  the  irresistible  attraction  of  the  Cross 
of  Christ.  High  up  in  the  spiritual  heavens, 
there    rides    a  force   that   turns    these   spiritual 


174  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

tides,  and,  once  set  In  motion  by  the  hand 
of  God,  they  advance  with  a  supreme  and 
glorious  fixity  that  nothing  but  the  hand  of  God 
can  ever  check.  The  tide  of  the  missionary 
spirit  is  flowing  through  our  century.  The  first 
waves  are  faint  ripples  such  as  a  child  might 
fancy  it  could  arrest ;  but  the  ripples  ripple  in, 
the  tide  rises,  and  the  waves  advance.  The 
Careys  and  Kiernanders  have  been  followed  by 
the  spreading  lines  of  a  huge  missionary  army  ; 
and  behind  the  broad  lines  of  to-day,  others 
broader  still  are  advancing,  and  rank  by  rank  as 
the  years  roll  on,  the  waters  of  the  Gospel  will 
cover  all  these  unlovely  flats  of  heathen  life  as 
the  waters  come  in  from  the  sea. 
Carey.  And  it  was  out  of  this  new  spirit,  then  break- 
ing everywhere  over  England,  that  there  issued 
in  William  Carey,  the  first  great  gift  that 
England  sent  to  foreign  missions  since  the 
Reformation.  The  story  of  that  life,  and  the 
lives  of  his  two  comrades,  as  noble  as  his  own, 
needs  no  repeating ;  but  if  it  did,  it  does  not 
belong  so  much  to  the  dawn  as  to  the  morning, 
and  would  take  us  beyond  the  limits  I  have 
ventured  to  impose.  There  is  nothing  more 
brilliant  or  heroic  in  our  modern  Church  than 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  1 75 

tliat  passage  of  her  history ;  and  how  nobly  it 
rang  out  the  old  and  rang  in  the  new,  as  last 
century  was  changing  into  this,  the  crowded 
missions  of  to-day  will  testify.  It  is  not  easy  to 
pause  just  on  the  threshold  of  the  busiest  and 
most  stately  missionary  epoch  that  men  have 
ever  seen,  to  be  carried  just  to  the  line  where 
success  seems  at  the  door,  and  then  to  turn. 
But  the  study  of  this  century  demands  a  histor- 
ian for  itself.  We  see  the  results  before  our 
eyes,  and  we  can  connect  them  with  the  long 
era  of  the  preparation.  When  Carey  died,  the 
Gospel  was  firmly  planted  in  India,  so  firmly, 
that  every  day  bears  witness  it  will  grow  to  be 
there  what  it  has  grown  to  be  at  home ;  and 
there  are  two  touching  episodes  by  which  we 
may  bridge  over  all  the  history. 

It  was  only  six  years  after  Ziegenbalg  sailed 
for  India  that  Kiernander  was  born,  and  when 
he  was  eighty-three,  he  received  a  visit  from 
Carey,  who  records  the  fresh  ardour  he  derived 
from  the  still  burning  fire  of  the  aged  saint, 
as  he  waited  quietly  by  the  Ganges  for  the 
summons  of  his  Lord. 

The    distinguished    biographer    of    Dr.    Duff,  Duff  and 
connecting    that    incident    with    another,    has  ^^^^v- 


176  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

linked  the  first  Protestant  Mission  in  India  with 
our  own  time,  for  he  tells  us  of  another  visit,  and 
how,  three  years  before  Carey  died,  a  young 
Highlander  sprang  out  of  his  boat  at  Serampore, 
and  turning  ir.to  the  study  of  the  mission-house, 
saw  what  seemed  to  be  a  little,  shrivelled  old 
man  in  a  white  jacket,  who,  when  he  heard  the 
name,  rose  from  his  book,  tottered  to  meet  his 
visitor,  and  stretching  out  his  arms,  solemnly 
blessed  him.  And  we  who  know  what 
happened  since,  know  too,  that  the  trembling 
hands  could  have  been  laid  upon  no  worthier 
head  ;  that  the  blessing  of  one  apostolic  soul 
broke  out  in  the  life-long  labours,  the  magnifi- 
cent ambitions,  the  fervid  glow,  and  the  splendid 
triumphs  of  that  other — the  latest  apostle  of  them 
all,  but  not  we  hope  the  last ;  and  in  that  meet- 
ing by  the  Hoogly  the  centuries  cross  hands, 
the  century  of  preparation,  and  the  century  of 
conquest,  and  Ziegenbalg's  faith  and  ardour 
are  prolonged  through  Schwartz  and  Carey 
down  to  Duff,  and  God  fulfils  Himself  in  many 
ways. 

I  have  said  that  with  Carey  the  planting  of 
Christianity  was  an  accomplished  fact  in  India, 
and  by  that  I  mean  that  Christianity  will  grow 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  1 77 

there  as  the  Gospel  always  grows,  from  being- 
the  least  noticeable  of  seeds,  till  its  branches 
cover  all  the  land  with  the  grateful  shadow  of 
their  leaves  of  healing. 

We  have  come  to  the  limits  of  the  period 
within  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  trace  the 
outcome  of  the  missionary  spirit.  The  next  step 
will  take  us  beyond  the  dawn  into  the  day,  but 
I  must  recall  to  you,  as  we  face  the  possibilities 
of  change,  that  Hinduism  has  always  been  in  a  Hinduism 
state  of  change,  and  that  doctrines  and  practices  changes, 
that  claim  authority  on  the  ground  of  their 
antiquity  are  comparatively  modern.  The 
Vedas  know  nothing  of  the  incarnation  and 
types  of  Vishnu,  as  they  are  familiar  to  every 
Hindu  of  to-day.  The  favourite  characters  of 
Krishna,  the  forms  by  which  he  is  worshipped 
everywhere,  are  of  comparatively  modern  inven- 
tion. Although  the  Siva  worship  antedates 
Buddhism,  it  has  no  place  in  the  Veda.  The 
preferential  worship  of  Siva  does  not  date 
further  back  than  the  eighth  or  ninth  century, 
when  the  founder  of  it  instituted  mendicant  friars 
for  its  propagation,  and  in  the  eleventh  century 
a  new  teacher  rose,  deposed  Siva,  and  set  up 
Vishnu,  and  the  mendicant  orders  he   founded 

N 


178  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

are  almost  the  sole  spiritual  guides  of  the  people 
to-day. 

None  of  the  Puranas  seem  to  be  older  than 
the  third  or  fourth  century  before  Christ,  and 
even  they  were  the  result  of  change  imposed 
by  other  religious  movements.  The  most  popu- 
lar Purana  of  all,  the  Purana  Bhagavata,  has 
been  set  down  by  learned  Brahmans  to  an  unin- 
spired grammarian  of  the  twelfth  century,  and 
there  is  little  doubt  that  the  Purana  Brahma 
Vairvarta  is  still  more  modern.  Brahmanism 
has  digested  and  assimilated  something  from 
all  creeds — the  fetishism  of  the  Aborigines,  the 
practices  of  the  primitive  tribes,  ideas  from 
the  various  Dravidian  cults,  and  Sir  Monier 
Williams  thinks  it  may  have  even  owed  some- 
thing to  Christianity. 

Buddhism  left  its  mark  in  the  abolition  of 
frequent  sacrifice,  the  tenderness  towards  animal 
life,  the  new  intensity  of  faith  in  transmigration, 
and  in  the  efficacy  of  self-mortification  as  a 
source  of  power.  It  betrays  itself  also  in  its 
veneration  for  the  footprints  of  holy  personages, 
and  in  the  tendency,  slight,  but  distinct,  to 
recognise  caste  as  evil.  In  the  pre-Buddhist 
age,    Brahma   goes    for    nothing,   and    Krishna 


THE   CONQUEST   OF    INDIA.  1/9 

began  to  overshadow  other  cults  in  popular 
favour,  and  there  are  careful  inquirers  who 
declare  that  Hinduism  has  assimilated  nearly 
every  doctrine  of  Buddhism  but  its  Atheism. 
Mohammedanism  has  left  traces  of  its  own  a 
good  deal  broader  than  the  tiny  pulpits  of  the 
Mogul  that  I  saw  carved  on  the  roof  of  the  Jain 
temples  at  Palitana,  a  good  deal  deeper  than 
the  fervour  of  those  modern  hymns  that  have 
borrowed  their  mystical  warmth  from  the 
Persian  Sufis. 

Sects  powerful  and  long  enduring,  like  those 
of  Kabir  and  Nanak,  have  been  constantly 
springing  up  with  protests  against  idols  and 
withdrawal  from  Brahmanical  ritual ;  and 
although,  with  apparently  the  same  constancy, 
they  have  declined,  yet  never  without  some 
fragment  of  their  teaching  being  lodged  in  the 
popular  religion. 

It  has  been  said  that  it  is  only  by  the  practice  Hinduism  re- 
of  a  kind  of  universal  toleration  and  receptivity  ceptive. 
that  Hinduism  has  maintained  its  ground.  But 
this  "accommodating  and  absorbing  religion," this 
"  ancient  and  over-grown  fabric,  patched,  pieced, 
restored,  and  enlarged  in  all  directions,  inlaid 
with  every  variety  of  idea,  looking  as  if  ready  at 


l80  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

any  moment  to  fall  into  ruins,  and  still  keeping 
its  position  securely,"  has  now  been  touched  by 
Christianity.  According  to  the  unbroken  law 
that  governs  the  history  of  this  religion,  Christ- 
ianity will  impress  itself  in  turn.  We  can  watch 
the  process  already.  It  may  seem  over  bold  to 
say  that  the  slender  influence  of  Christian 
missions  has  led  even  to  the  threshold  of  con- 
quest. And  yet,  combinations  of  intellectual 
powers  still  unsurpassed  were  divested  of  their 
speciousness,  and  shown  to  be  fallacies  by  the 
Ithuriel  spear  of  Christian  truth.  The  weapons 
which  discomfited  these  delusions  are  in  our 
hands.  Have  they  lost  their  efficacy,  or  have 
we  lost  the  skill  to  employ  them?  Much  of 
Hinduism  is  held  together  only  by  the  influ- 
ence of  women  and  the  influence  of  caste. 
These  bands  are  loosening.  What  will  be 
the  influence  of  Christianity  when  they  are 
loosened  ? 
Three  It  IS  three  centuries  ago  since  English  adven- 

centuries  ago.  tui-gj-s^  travelling  in  pursuit  of  commerce,  brought 
back  from  India  such  reports  of  the  splendour 
of  its  princes  and  the  solidity  and  magnificence 
of  its  government,  that  they  fired  the  heart  of 
England,  and  became  the  unconscious  founders 


THE  CONQUEST   OF   INDIA.  l8l 

of  the  English  rule.  Is  it  unlikely  that  travellers 
of  no  remote  date  will  bring  us  back  from  the 
same  East,  tales  of  another  and  a  greater  splen- 
dour, not,  as  they  might  to-day,  of  an  India 
ruled  by  Christian  men,  but  of  a  Hindu  popula- 
tion that,  from  the  Himalaya  to  Cape  Comorin 
has  accepted  Christ  ? 

We  are  working  now  as  they  worked  at  those  The  work  of 
superb  palaces  and  tombs  which  still  dominate,  ^o-f^ay. 
although  in  ruins,  the  towns  of  the  Mohammedan 
conquest.  Far  down  into  the  foundations  they 
sank,  with  what  infinite  patience  we  may  imagine, 
vast  masses  of  dull  red  sandstone,  and  built  it 
up  in  mighty  walls  that  only  lose  their  gloom 
when  glowing  in  the  setting  sun  ;  but  on  the 
summit  they  placed,  as  if  to  last  for  ever,  some 
structure  of  fair,  white,  pierced,  and  fretted 
stone,  so  fitting  and  beautiful,  so  airy  and  deli- 
cate, that  it  seems  like  a  marble  dream. 

Let  us  be  patient  and  continuous,  working 
bravely  at  the  foundation  of  this  Christian  India, 
pouring  into  it  true  hearts  and  noble  lives, 
the  named  and  the  nameless  there  together, 
treasures  of  thought  and  treasures  of  the  price- 
less years.  There  is  already  rising  on  that 
foundation    the  vision  of  our   faith   and   hope, 


1 82  THE   CONQUEST   OF   INDIA. 

once  the  dream,  but  now  the  fan*  and  stately 
fact  of  a  Christian  India,  a  fragment,  yet  com- 
plete in  itself,  of  that  great  city — the  holy 
Jerusalem  which  descends  out  of  heaven  from 
God,  and  where  the  nations  of  the  saved  walk 
in  the  light  of  His  glory. 


THE   END. 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS  AND  PLACES. 


Abyssinia,  4,  5,  42-44. 

Adriatic,  6,  19. 

iEgean  Sea,  25. 

Africa,  4,  8,  18,  19,  45,  60,  135, 

141,  143. 
Agni,  69,  70. 
Akbar,  IS,  74,  I55- 
Alexander,  26. 

Alexandria,  5,  42,  76,  77,  80. 
Alleyne,  40. 
Alypius,  5. 

America,  4,  100,  134,  135,  141. 
Amiens,  103. 
Amsterdam,  44,  47. 
Anschar,  25. 
Antigiia,  39. 
Antioch,  5. 
Arbuthnot,  144. 
Asia,  4,  6,  8,  17,  19,  135. 
Asia  Minor,  5. 
Augsburg,  47. 
Augustine,  5. 
Augustus,  22. 


Badie,  Jean  de  la,  102,  104. 

Baltic,  4. 

Baxter,  40,  50. 

Bay  of  Bengal,  166. 

Beck,  132-134. 

Behring's  Straits,  4. 

Bergen,  122. 

Berkeley,  40,  144,  146. 

Berlin,  54,  57,  59,  99>  105. 

Bermuda,  144. 

Bethelsdorf,  127. 

Bhagavata,  178. 

Black  Sea,  4. 

Blumenhagen,  42, 

Boehmisch,  Frederick,  128,  130, 

134- 

Bombay,  164. 
Bonaparte,  162. 
Borgia,  15. 
Bosphorus,  19. 
Boyle,  Robert,  37,  49. 
Brahma,  14,  y^y  ^7^- 
Brahma  Vairvarta,  178. 


183 


84 


NDEX   OF   PERSONS   AND    PLACES. 


Brazil,  31. 

Britain,  4,  143,  163. 

British  Empire  in  India,  162. 

Brito,  Juan  de,  78. 

Brookfarm,  103. 

Brown,  171. 

Bruce,  43. 

Buchanan,  Claudius,  167. 

Buddha,  72. 

Butler,  40,  144. 

Cairo,  43. 

Calcutta,  157,  159,  164-166, 172. 

Calvin,  30,  31,  103. 

Cambridge,  34,  36,  167. 

Canada,  17. 

Canterbury,  Archbishop  of,  151. 

Cape  of  Good  Hope,  4. 

Carey,  William,  64,  174-176. 

Carlyle,  104. 

Carthage,  5. 

Caspian  Sea,  6. 

Cawnpore,  169. 

Ceylon,  39. 

Chalmers,  139. 

Charles  II.,  164. 

Charles  V.,  30. 

Charles  VI.,  107. 

Charles  XII.,  90. 

China,  5,  6,  16,  17,  50,  86. 

Chinsurah,  159. 

Christian  David,  127,  130,  131. 

Chiy  SOS  torn,  6. 

Clive,  165. 

Columbus,  4. 


Comorin,  ii,  82,  181. 
Confucius,  16. 
Constantinople,  6. 
Cook,  Captain,  5. 
Copenhagen,  60,  90,   107,   116, 

117,  121,  125-127,  130. 
Coromandel,  56,  82. 
Courland,  26. 
Cromwell,  49. 
Cuddalore,  165. 
Cyprian,  6,  78. 
Czar  Peter,  113. 

Danube,  3,  25. 
Damascus,  170. 
Denmark,  4,  55,  56,  90, 129,  130, 

151. 

Dinapore,  169,  170. 
Dober,  Leonhard,  135,  136. 
Dresden,  57. 
Drontheim,  112. 
Duff,  Dr.,  175,  176. 
Dunkirk,  121. 

Egede,  Hans,  117,  121-123,  125, 
129,  131,  134,  135,  140, 
141. 

Egede,  Gertrude,  124. 
Egede,  Paul,  126. 
Egypt,  5.  43- 
Ehrhardt,  141, 
Elbe,  3- 

Eliot,  34-36,  39,  48,  50,  6 r,  141. 
England,  35,  143,  151,  152,  163, 
167,  174,  180. 


INDEX  OF   PERSONS  AND   PLACES. 


.85 


English  Channel,  164. 

Erasmus,  27. 

Eric  the  Red,  118. 

Eskimo,  17. 

Esthonia,  26. 

Europe,  3-5,  7,  9,  10,  15,  19, 
21,  25,  26,  28-31,  38,  45, 
50,  65,  78,  80,  87,  100, 
107,  109,118,  132,  134,  151, 
163. 

Falk,  John,  104. 
Finnland,  116,  140. 
Flaxman,  156. 
Florida,  32. 
Formosa,  39. 
France,  4,  30,  103,  138. 
Francke,  54,  59,91,  104,  153. 
Frederic  IV.,  55,  113. 
Frumentius,  77. 

Ganges,  14,  160,  175. 

Gariitmat,  69. 

Geneva,  103,  104, 

Georgia,  146. 

Germany,  4,  24,  30,  40,  45,  47, 

53,    54,    61,    91,    104,    138, 

152. 
Gibraltar,  Straits  of,  4. 
Gichtel,  46,  47. 
Goa,  78,  80. 
Godhaab,  127. 
Gbrlitz,  58. 
Grant,  Mr.,  160,  166. 
Great  Britain,  165,  168. 


Greece,  20. 

Greenland,  7,   17,  55,   118,  119, 

125,  126,  129-131,  135,  137, 

140-142. 
Gregory  XV.,  49. 
Grotius,  Hugo,  41,  45,  49. 
Guyenne,  100. 

Halle,  54,  59,  91,  99,  105,  106, 

152,  153- 
Hegel,  14. 
Hennersdorf,  106. 
Herrnhut,     128,    131,    134-136, 

139. 

Hey  ling,  Peter,  41,  42,  44-46. 
Himalaya,  11,  67,  164,  180. 
Hindustan,  4,  161. 
Hippo,  5. 
Holland,  91. 
Hoogly,  176. 
Hope  Island,  123. 
Hutberg,  128. 
Hyder  Ali,  155. 

Iceland,  7,  118. 

Indies,  56,  135,  141,  143. 

India,  13,  15,  55,  61,  63,  73-77, 
80,  83,  87,  88,  93,  94,  99, 
100,  148,  151,  155,  160-163, 
165,  167,  168,  172,  175, 
176,  180,  181. 

Indian  Empire,  164. 

Indra,  69. 

Ispahan,  171. 

Italy,  4- 


1 86 


INDEX   OF   PERSONS  AND   PLACES. 


Japan,  17. 

Java,  39. 

Jerusalem,  19,  42,  43,  182. 

Kabir,  179. 
Kayarnak,  133. 

Kiernander,  165,  166,  171,  175. 
Krishna,  177,  178. 

Labrador,  17,  134, 135,  141,  142. 

Lafiteau,  81. 

Lange,  54,  59,  60. 

Laotze,  16. 

La  Perouse,  5. 

Leibnitz,  50. 

Leyden,  49. 

Lichtenfels,  135. 

Livingstone,  30. 

Livonia,  26. 

Lofoden,  116. 

London,  91,  134,  145,  146,  167. 

LUbeck,  41,  42,  44,  45. 

Ludlow,  Mr.,  75. 

Lully,  Raymond,  8. 

Lusatia,  127. 

Luther,  8,  30. 

Liitkens,  Dr.,  56,  57,  89. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  26,  160. 

Madras,  82,  100,  157,  158. 

Malabar,  5,  72,  75,  76. 

Malta,  42. 

Manchester,  164. 

Manu,  70. 

Martyn,  Henry,  26,  168, 170-172. 


Mather,  S^. 
Maya,  14. 
Mayhew,  141. 
Mazarin,  Cardinal,  103. 
Mediterranean,  4. 
Merseburg,  59. 
Mexico,  18,  142. 
Mezzofanti,  45. 
Mitra,  69. 

Mohammed,  4,  5,  18,  19. 
Mollen,  42. 
Monica,  6. 
Montauban,  103. 
Moravia,  127. 
Miiller,  George,  104. 
Miiller,  Max,  142, 

Nanak,  179. 

Nero,  15. 

New  England,  34-36,  49. 

Newport,  Rhode  Island,  146. 

Newton,  John,  167. 

Nice,  76,  78. 

Nile,  4. 

Nitschmann,  David,  136. 

Nobili,  Robert  de,  78. 

Norway,  8,  114,  1 15,  120,  140. 

Odin,  8. 

Oglethorpe,  146. 
Olaf,  King,  8. 
Olympus,  20. 
Origen,  23,  78. 
Ouranos,  69. 
Oxford,  34. 


INDEX  OF   PERSONS  AND   PLACES. 


187 


Padua,  42. 
Palestine,  5,  26. 
Palitana,  179. 
Pantaenus,  76. 
Paris,  41,  42,  106. 
Patagonia,  4. 
Peloponnesus,  25. 
Perpetua,  6. 
Persia,  76. 
Peru,  18. 
Peter,  Czar,  113. 
Pliitschau,  60,  61. 
Polynesia,  18. 
Pondicherry,  82,  163. 
Pope,  144. 
Portugal,  30,  157. 
Prester  John,  6. 
Prussia,  90. 
Pulsnitz,  57. 

Rask,  Gertrude,  117. 

Ratisbon,  46,  47. 

Red  Sea,  4. 

Renan,  M.,  27. 

Rome,  3,  6,  10,  20,  22,  28,  45, 

7Z,  78. 
Roman  Empire,  27,  95. 
Roxbury,  35,  36. 
Russia,  4,  8. 

Samarius,  45. 
San  Yuste,  30. 
Saxony,  141. 
Schmidt,  141. 
Schulze,  153. 


Schwartz,  64,  153,  155,  156,  176. 

Serampore,  16S,  176. 

Shetland,  7. 

Shiraz,  171. 

Siva,  14,  177. 

Sodom,  114. 

Sonnenberg,  152. 

Spain,  4,  30. 

Spener,  Jacob,  104. 

Spielberg,  141. 

Spurgeon,  Mr.,  104. 

Stach,  Matthew,  128,   130,   132, 

134- 
St.  David,  Bishop  of,  161. 
St.  Thomas,  55,  60,  136. 
Stralsund,  90. 
Sumatra,  39. 
wSurat,  81,  163. 
Surinam,  47,  104. 
Sweden,  8,  25,  55,  121. 
Swift,  144,  145. 
Switzerland,  108. 
Syria,  76,  80. 

Tagaste,  5. 
Tamerlane,  6. 

Tanjore,  Rajah  of,  154,  156. 
Teheran,  171. 
Tertullian,  6. 
Thibet,  160. 
Thoroughgood,  34. 
Tinnevelly,  100,  157. 
Tocat,  171. 

Tranquebar,  55,  56, 60-62,  82,  88. 
90,  91,  105,  106,  163,  165. 


i88 


INDEX   OF   PERSONS   AND   PLACES. 


Travancore,  loo. 
Trimurtti,  13. 
Trollope,  Mr.,  137. 
Troy,  10. 
Turkey,  21,  42. 

United  States,  if. 
Ursinus,  47. 

Vaagen,  117. 
Valegiani,  86. 
Van  Dome,  41. 
Varuna,  69. 
Venice,  130. 
Vikings,  4,  8. 
Villegaignon,  31. 
Vishnu,  177. 
Von  Pless,  131,  136. 

Walseus,  49. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  145. 

Wedoens,  113. 


Weimar,  104. 

Welz,  Baron  von,  46,  47,  49. 

Wesley,  144,  146. 

West  en,  Thomas  von,  112,  115, 

116,  140. 
Whitfield,  144. 
Wilberforce,  138. 
Williams,  John,  35. 
Williams,  Sir  Monier,  178. 
Wittenberg,'  185. 

Xavier,  78. 

Yellow  Sea,  6, 

Ziegenbalg,   53,   58,  60-65,  75» 

86,   88,   90,  93,  104,  106, 

151,  152,  154,  156,  175, 
176. 

Zinzendorf,    Count,  105,  106, 

116,  126,  127,  129,  130, 
136,  137,  140. 


LORIMER   AND   GILLIES,    PRINTERS,    KDINBURGH. 


Princeton  Theological  Seminarv   Libraries 


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